Some of the amazing artwork on display in the Egypt exhibition at the Auckland Museum

It’s now Saturday September 23^rd, 2023. Kia ora!

We have come on a small road trip north. We left on Wednesday, driving to Taupo. It was fine and warm, with little traffic.  We had lunch at the Church Café in Sanson. We had stopped there four years ago, en route to JD’s mother’s funeral in Taupo, and had good memories of it. Today, it seemed rather rustic.

We also stopped at the Army Museum in Waiouru.  I couldn’t find what time the café (the Mess Tent) closed, but it was still open when we went there. We had oat milk lattés, and then I went to have a look at the shop. I found some beautiful scarves, and JD bought me one of my favourites.  Having done that, he then decided to buy one for his sister too. I was very glad to have the new scarf, as it turned out. It goes with everything, is quite fashionable, and adds warmth.

We had a wonderful drive over the Desert Road, with fabulous views of the mountains, and not much traffic.

In Taupo we were staying somewhere we hadn’t stayed before in Rifle Range Road.  It was much cheaper than other options, and I thought, ah well, it’s only for one night. En route, I got a text message to say that the key was under the mat. In the event, it wasn’t, and the unit number was incorrect. But the motel was just fine: it was quite roomy, with plenty of plugs, a power board, and a small spa bath. The towels were rather thin, and there were only two of everything, with no view of the mountains, but that didn’t matter. On the way we had had a beautiful view of the mountains, cloudless.

We had dinner at Portofino, which was nearby; it was empty when we arrived but soon filled up.

The next morning we got on our way to Auckland. This was a rather trying drive. There were many timber trucks. We waited for passing lanes to pass them, but they were like ants: we’d overtake three, go around a corner, and there’d be three more. Thankfully they turned off before Tirau for the Tauranga Port. We didn’t stop in Tirau; JD wanted to stop at the Bombay Hills; I thought we’d have to turn off the Southern Motorway to go to one of the two cafés there. Consequently we turned off the Waikato Expressway to go to Cambridge. We found our way to the town centre, and struggled to find a parking place. We then walked back to a café for lunch. I tried to get Google Maps to tell us how to get back onto the Waikato Expressway, without success. A waitress gave us instructions. It was quite a long way, but we went past St Peter’s Church, and then St Peter’s School, followed lots of cones, and eventually lo and behold we found our way onto the Waikato Expressway again. The speed limit was 110 kph, and there was lots of traffic, but we enjoyed speeding past Hamilton, Huntly, Pukekohe and other places. 

I used Google Maps to find our motel. We were instructed to take Exit 432, but it was a bit hairy following the computerised voice’s instructions. There was masses of traffic, and some tricky lane changes. Google took us past St Cuthbert’s College, along a narrow road with cars parked both sides, where school was just out. Still, we were almost at our motel – Cornwall Park Motor Lodge. We were able to get a unit on the ground floor, thankfully.  Our unit wasn’t quite as big as the one we’d had in Taupo, and doesn’t have a spa bath, but it’s very good and we’re quite comfortable. The towels are better!

That evening we walked up Manakau Road to Da Soldi Sette, an Italian restaurant where we’d been before. It was crowded and noisy, but very good. We had some cheesy pizza bread to start with, and gave half of it away, although it was delicious; JD then had a risotto and I had scallopini parmigiana, delicious tender pork steaks crumbed and covered with tomato (Napoli) sauce and parmesan cheese. Afterwards, we shared affogato with Tia Maria, and a yummy tiramisu. The best! Then we walked back to the motel, thinking this was perhaps a rather stupid move. Of course, it didn’t seem as far walking back.

The next day was a big day. I was due to meet my cousin for lunch, and JD had a Hōhepa Foundation meeting in Takapuna; afterwards, there was to be a dinner, but the arrangements were all a bit vague.  We went early to the North Shore, and bought a copy of the NZ Herald (the Post was unavailable), before buying coffee at the Movenpick place.  Then JD dropped me off. The French Rendezvous Café was beside the Pumphouse, the Bruce Mason playhouse on Lake Pupuke. JD dropped me off at the top of the drive, after driving along a narrow street. I walked down, and found the restaurant. My cousin came a few minutes later. I hadn’t been here before, and I hadn’t seen Lake Pupuke either. The brick playhouse was rather wonderful to see

It was lovely to see her again. I had what was called a galette, which was really a large buckwheat pancake with smoked salmon and spinach and some yummy tasty blobs of sauce; it had a cheesy filling too. She had gnocchi; we finished with affogato for her and a profiterole for me – delicious, with ice cream and chocolate sauce. Afterwards, she took me back to her house in Milford, and I looked at wedding photos for her only son. We talked about the novel A Gentleman in Moscow, which I had read myself, and been totally impressed by it. Then I had a rest before JD picked me up soon after 5 pm. 

We were to have dinner at Tok Tok at 5:30 pm; we had drinks first, after finding a carpark, and finding where to pay for it. Then we walked to the restaurant. It was very busy, but service was efficient and attentive. Again, I had a nice mocktail drink. We had the $65 per person special, which saved making tricky choices about foreign (“Asian fusion”) food. The food was delicious, for the most part. Afterwards, JD brought the car to the restaurant, where he had offered one of the party a lift to the older suburbs of the city, supposedly closer to where we were staying. We had fun with Google Maps’ animated instructions.  It being dark, we couldn’t see where we were going. We seemed to end up in an industrial area, after a few wrong turns – it’s so hard to see street names in the dark. Eventually we were at the given address, and there were two apartment buildings. Our party wasn’t sure which one she was staying at, but her friend came down to meet her, so that was that. Then we had to find our way to Cornwall Park, where we were staying. I was extremely tired by this time. But we did get there, thankfully.

The next day (Saturday) I had plans that we should go to the Egyptian exhibition at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, visiting Maison Vauron in Newmarket on the way. There was an opportunity to buy tickets online for the exhibition, since entry would be restricted, but we didn’t bother with that, since I didn’t know how long things would take.

We found Maison Vauron, with the help of Google Maps; it was along a narrow street, off Khyber Pass Road, but it had its own parking place at one end of the street. It was drizzling with rain. The shop was very busy, and there wasn’t much room to sit. There was a rather scary staircase upstairs; I didn’t feel like going up. I looked at some of the products for sale, but they were very expensive. One couple left, so I sat down and we ordered morning tea: two long black coffees, and two Danish pastries.  It was delicious, but the store was very busy, and it rained even harder outside.  JD backed gingerly out of the car park, and we tried to follow Google Maps but it often had us making right turns into busy roads, not easy to do.  Many cars wouldn’t let us into the traffic; eventually a kind driver did. We found our way to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, quite nearby, and went into the carpark, where we found what JD calls a “fraud” park. We had entered the car park, only to be confronted by a Carpark Full sign, however we had to keep going and we did find a carpark. We went upstairs, and bought tickets to the Egyptian exhibition for just over 30 minutes later. The museum was extremely busy, but we made our way to the main restaurant.

The menu was rather strange, but we ordered oat milk lattés and a platter. It was very good, with ciabatta, crackers, grapes, cheese, pâté, olives, prosciutto, onion jam, and salami. Of course it was far too much, but JD obtained two boxes to take away the leftovers.

Then we saw the exhibition, which was very good indeed.  I am glad that we saw it. Afterwards, we drove to Royal Oak to the shopping centre where we tried (fruitlessly) to get copy of the Post from the lovely Whitcoulls store there.  I haven’t found anywhere you can get a copy of the Post in Auckland.  It one googles the Post, one can only get NZ Post outlets.  I rather wish they’d kept the old name, the Dom Post. That evening we had the leftovers from the platter we’d had at lunch time, before retiring for the short night heralding the start of Daylight Savings.

The weather was wild during the night. We set off to travel south, but the weather wasn’t too bad – just drizzling. We drove to Taupo, and had lunch at Victoria Café. I had fluffy lemon pancakes, which I could not finish, since JD had got me a delicious chocolate brownie with cream. I did not need this. I felt bad about being unable to finish the delicious pancakes.

Then we set out to drive to Hawkes Bay along the famous Taupo-Napier highway. It was fine, actually, although it was a bit trickier at the Napier end, with heavier rain, some fog, and widespread evidence of destruction. But we got through it, and to our motel in Havelock North.

It was much cooler than I expected everywhere we went. On Friday, it was about 18°C in Auckland, and I wore black trousers and a long sleeved top and was quite comfortable. But it was much cooler in Hawkes Bay, and mostly wet. On Sunday we walked up to Divo for dinner (really good – entrees and dessert); it was drizzling. We ate shrimp cocktails (a throwback!), arancini, and bruschetta, followed by affogato and tiramisu. It rained much harder the next day. I had intended to walk around the shops in Havelock North, but it was too wet for that. It’s quite slippery when it’s wet, as well as wetting your clothes, despite wearing a raincoat. We drove into Napier, where we bought a copy of the Wellington paper; I looked at Farmers, and then we drove to Hōhepa at Clive where I went to the lovely shop. I bought some Danbo cheese, and some quince jelly, but they didn’t have any jam available.

Driving from Napier to Clive we were amazed to see that not only have the railway line and main bridge been fixed, but there was a good train using the railway line! That is quite wonderful, since the railway line in the Esk Valley is still destroyed.

That evening we took our daughter out for dinner. She was beautifully dressed, and I was glad I’d taken a warmer top and a velvet bomber jacket, so I felt nearly as dressed up as her in her long black skirt, pink top and black velvet jacket. We went to the Thirsty Whale in Ahuriri, where we’ve been before several times, in fact, we had her thirtieth birthday party there.

The food was delicious!  Although it was very wet outside, and the drainage seemed insufficient. Thankfully, we got a car park right across the road.  There was more yummy affogato for dessert, this time with Frangelico. Our daughter had Berry Ambrosia, which looked good too.

Today (Tuesday) we drive back to Wellington. JD had a meeting with the General Manager of Hōhepa Hawkes Bay, and we went to the Clive site, but he was up at Poraiti, at Hōhepa School, so we drove up there.  What a lovely site it is, and how Harris and Cunningham houses, newly being built, have come on since we were last there at the end of May.   What a great job they are doing, although there are always challenges, of course.

We didn’t get away till after midday. We stopped in Taradale where I bought a copy of the Listener, and we managed to track down a copy of the Post, in the third shop we tried! I guess it’s good to know people are reading the Post in Hawkes Bay!

We had lunch in Dannevirke, at a café I hadn’t been to before. The one I thought it was, was closed on a Tuesday. Never mind, the Māori woman serving us was eager to please, and the food was good. Then we set about the drive back to Wellington. It was pretty uneventful, although the rain was stronger, and there were wind warnings on the Transmission Gully Motorway. And so we arrived safely home.

It is really cold in Wellington.  It feels colder than it did during the main cold of winter, although at that time we had heaters on and were wearing warmer clothes. Lately it had become much warmer and I was wearing much more summery clothes. It seems to take a long time for the heat pump to warm the house. We still don’t have the promised remote control to turn it on when we reach the Expressway into Wellington, now just north of Otaki.

It’s now Wednesday September 27^th.

We have very little food left in the house. Last night we had soup and toast, and watched the new series of Annika.

This afternoon we went shopping in Thorndon. A protest (with a long name beginning with Coalition) led by Brian Tamaki, and another protest, are due in Wellington tomorrow, and accordingly some streets have been closed off and adjustments made to public transport. Really, what is the point of protesting just before an election? If any party takes the protesters seriously, and says so, many people who don’t support it will be seriously annoyed. What’s more, it’s very cold and not great weather, although I’m sure Brian Tamaki will be staying somewhere comfortable.

The supermarket was not as full as usual, perhaps because it was late afternoon, or perhaps because of the much anticipated protests causing transport disruption.  JD got antsy and so I had to hurry around, which I found really frustrating, since there were some things I wanted to look for.  He has ignored my discomfort so many times when I haven’t been able to sit down, or use a restroom, and have had to stand while he talks to someone at great length. Perhaps I need a safe word to indicate when I’m distressed.

There is a General Election coming up on October 14^th. There were hoardings up the north island, by far the most of them being for the Act party and David Seymour. Evidently he’s been haemorrhaging support recently, and it seems as though Winston Peters may again be the “king maker”. I have to remind myself that he chose to go with Labour back in November 2017, and this we got Prime Minister Ardern for almost two terms. 

The local MP, Greg O’Connor, told my husband he expects Labour will lose the election, Furthermore, this view has been published in the local newspaper! He claims his main opponent, Nicola Willis, deputy leader of the National Party, is standing in Ohariu too. Evidently she has an impressive organisation, although she hasn’t been in touch with me. Greg puts failure down to the long shutdown in Tamaki Makaurau in the latter part of 2021, and to co-governance. Well, Greg, you shouldn’t be throwing in the towel! He’s not even a list MP! It’s not over till it’s over.  I cannot imagine any Māori people choosing to vote National or Act, although there may be a few.  Even if New Zealanders don’t like things Māori, in all likelihood Christopher Luxon will have to form a coalition with a Māori – either Winston Peters or David Seymour, like it or not. I think a coalition with Peters’ NZ First would be preferable, Acts’ demands are so scary.  Still, I guess it won’t make too much difference to us, as we’re both over 70 years old, and raising the pension age is unlikely to affect us.  It’s also unlikely to happen, since the older demographic are more likely to be National Party donors and supporters.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

The wharf at Days Bay, Wellington

It’s now Sunday September 10^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Yesterday some consequential things happened in the US.  Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff when he was president, has lost his bid to have his trial moved to federal court.  A judge made this ruling, which was unsurprising.  Another thing that happened is that it was revealed that the Georgia grand jury had voted to indict Senator Lindsay Graham and several others, whom Fani Willis has not charged, as yet.

It’s now Wednesday September 13^th.

This morning I had my hair done, i.e. had some highlights and a hair cut.  This is the first time I have really been out for several weeks, apart from going shopping and to the local café.  After this success, we went out to Days’ Bay for lunch, where I had a whitebait omelette, and JD had a burger. Afterwards, we enjoyed oat milk lattés.  I am hoping to go to my Thursday singing tomorrow morning. I am feeling a little better now, but I still forget lots of things.

We have been watching I, Claudius again on television; admittedly, a hard watch.  Last night we watched an amazing performance of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti.  The music, and the performance, are extraordinary.  It is a real puzzle to agree what to watch at the moment.

It’s now Thursday September 14^th.

I did go to my Thursday morning singing in Khandallah. Nearby streets are still blocked off, so it’s a challenge to get there. Afterwards, I had coffee and a sandwich with a friend, before JD came to pick me up. I was very tired afterwards, but the voice behaved quite well – until afterwards when I tried to speak!

We have a General Election coming up on 14 October. So, in addition to the annoying stories in the media, there are daily polls, for some reason. Labour’s support is “plummeting” (how often can that exaggeration be used, I wonder?); but on a closer look I find that the two Chris’s are neck and neck in the preferred prime minister stakes.  You’d have to look beyond the screaming headlines to find that information.  Another poll places Winston Peters as king maker, again. I guess the media love this kind of stuff.

I looked on the RNZ website, and the weekly covid 19 stats are being published, as in the number of new cases, and the number of deaths. The numbers are going down, at last, thankfully, but covid 19 is still out there.  People are still getting it, some again and again, although you see very few masks, and the isolation requirements have gone, it seems. But it also seems that our immunity is reduced by having had Covid 19. That does not surprise me, somehow.

At the hairdresser’s yesterday, I read a Mindfood magazine, which extolled the virtues of cruising. It sounds very appealing, and, again, I have to remind myself of the disadvantages, aided by the news that a cruise ship with New Zealanders on board has run aground in Greenland; it also has passengers on board with Covid 19.  Then there is the fact that I have a very small appetite these days; I’m sure I would not take advantage of all the food on offer. Then there is the massive waste question, which no one seems to address – where does it all go? Then there is the fact that sometimes the rivers are too low for cruise ships; the sea can be rough; the tours don’t benefit the locals; and they’re a harbour for disease.  Granted you only unpack once, and many travellers from New Zealand take in a cruise for part of their trip to the Northern Hemisphere. I imagine that small cruises would be the most enjoyable for me, but when I go to Greece I want to see the cities, rather than the islands. Perhaps. 

In Wellington, there are serious water woes. The leak in our street was fixed in April (after being notified in January of this year), and a large pipe was replaced in Middleton Road. But I suspect a great amount of water is still being wasted. Recently the Johnsonville Shopping Centre was closed because of a water problem; this morning there’s a water outage in central Wellington; that’s not good – cafés and restrooms can’t operate, and I guess shops and offices have to close. The newspaper notice reads as follows:

Wellington office workers are being sent to work from home as water outages hit Wellington’s centre. Wellington Water said in a Facebook post that water was currently out in Central Wellington, between Waring Taylor St, Customhouse Quay, Grey St, and Featherston St. Buildings off Lady Elizabeth lane near Queens Wharf had also been affected by the outage. Evidently the cause is a burst water pipe in Customhouse Quay.

Serious water restrictions are suggested for the summer, including two minute showers, one load of washing a week, and no private watering of gardens. What?  That is alarming stuff. Perhaps it’s scaremongering?  There are only two of us here, but we do a load of washing a couple of times a week, and then there are the sheets and towels. As for two minute showers – how can this be policed, I wonder? Still, we’re fortunate to have temperate weather here: it’s beautifully warm, and we’re not plagued by fires or floods or strong winds, at present.

In the US, Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis has indicated she prefers to try all the indictees together. Although many legal eagles doubt the physical possibility of this, I say to them, what about the maxi-trials in Palermo of mafia criminals?  This can be done. The process was brave, open and honourable.

It’s now Friday September 15^th.

It started out really warm today, but then clouded over and cooled down. I opened some windows to air the place, but had to close them because it was so cold and draughty.  A lady from Access came to do some cleaning; before she came, I changed the towels and sheets. I wasn’t fussy about sheets, but I had put on the bed some good sheets we got from the Sheridan Outlet store that used to be in Johnsonville.  Then we got some lovely sheets from Farmers in the Riccarton Mall a year ago when we were in Christchurch, and they are so much lighter and better!  I wouldn’t have believed there would be such a difference.

In the US, several states have instituted what amounts to an abortion ban, and some of those (Texas, I think), wants to monitor any female person travelling to another state that allows abortion. In another state, authorities can access your medical records. The Democrats want to reinstate what they call Dobbs, i.e. the Supreme Court ruling that permits abortion and was revoked during 2022.  Some call this approach “pro choice”, and claim the decision whether to terminate or not should be between a woman and her doctor. Others are “pro life”, and some think that should be “pro baby”.  However, surely a man has something to do with this pregnancy, and its implications and its results are surely his responsibility as well?  On the other hand, despite republicans and some others being pro life or pro baby, the US remains a dreadful place for reproductive care! I’ve heard many harrowing stories of wanted pregnancies and the dire difficulties of getting good outcomes for mother and baby, and thus for the father too. Oh, the irony; you’d think that with such a premium being placed on carrying a child to term, there would be a huge effort to ensure good health care for mother and child at birth, never mind the incongruities of gun legislation, once you’re alive. Sadly, this is not so.

In the US, it seems that Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro will go to trial in October, having been severed from Trump and his other co-defendants. They will be tried together, however, although this is not what they wanted, to be tried together, that is.

It’s now Monday September 18^th.

Last night it was really windy in Wellington. We are quite sheltered where we live, but last night there were strong wind gusts. JD had put our rubbish out to be collected, as he usually does on a Sunday evening, but he brought it down the driveway again. Someone’s rubbish had blown over the road. This morning, however, it was calm and fine! Although more wind is forecast. Last night it was so windy that flights couldn’t land at Wellington Airport. Well, I’ve experienced that too.

Last night we watched the movie Living starring Bill Nighy on one of the streaming channels. The movie is set in 1953, and it was quite moving, although I thought it took a long time to build up steam. Everyone wears a hat, men included!  After that it was still quite early, so we watched another episode of Lewis. Sadly, watching Lewis is not conducive to sleeping well.

This morning a friend called around for a while, It was lovely to see her. After that, JD and I called briefly at the Johnsonville Shopping Centre.

Today the Covid 19 report was published. It reads as follows: There have been 3095 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week, and 20 further deaths attributed to the virus. Of the new cases, 1351 were reinfections.

At midnight Sunday 17 September there were 186 cases in hospital with two in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of new cases was 426.

Last week Te Whatu Ora reported 3458 new cases and 15 further deaths.

On Wednesday we are due to travel north to Auckland, where JD has a meeting on Friday morning.  We are full of trepidation, but since we are driving, I can take summer clothes and warmer ones too. At the last minute, I grab some sturdy shoes. I will be really thankful for them in the rain that is to follow!

That’s it for now. Hopefully I will be well enough for this trip, which I was really looking forward to before I became unwell.  JD wants to go, so we’ll go!

Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

The picture featured in the Raj Quartet featuring Queen Victoria as Empress of India

It’s now Thursday August 31st, 2023. Kia ora!

Things still aren’t great for me. I met my cousin for lunch on Monday (she picked me up); I didn’t go anywhere on Tuesday, although I had expected to. Yesterday (Wednesday) I had an appointment for a thyroid scan at Wellington Hospital.  I had an injection first, which was administered by a trainee; I hope it worked all right; there was some doubt about whether it got in correctly. The scan went fine, although it was very tiring. Afterwards, JD picked me up. Sadly, Wishbone is closed; awful as it was, you miss it when it’s not there.

Beforehand, we had avocado and tomato on toast for lunch. When well-seasoned, it’s delicious.

Afterwards we did some shopping in Churton Park and bought scones for afternoon tea.

Last night we watched a rendition of King Lear on television on Youtube, filmed in 1983. It starred Laurence Olivier as Lear, Diana Rigg as Regan, John Hurt as the Fool – a wonderful performance. What a treat!  Lord Olivier was a marvellous actor here, as in Brideshead Revisited.  The lines from this tragedy are so magnificent, so memorable….I first studied it at Wellington Girls’ College in my upper Sixth form year. We studied Shakespeare’s use of language, and the parallel themes of Lear’s story and Gloucester’s story; good versus evil; age versus youth; human comfort and luxury versus basic existence; and of course wisdom versus folly.  I feel as though I know this great play quite well. There has never been any suggestion of child abuse, or of bad parenting.

The reason I watched this performance of Lear was that I’m on an email list from Mother Jones, and one of the writers had read Lear, and been greatly affected by it, not having had much time for it at school when she was a student. She added the link to the performance, which we watched.

This afternoon we went up to the local café for lunch. Then I got a text from a friend whom I haven’t seen for ages, to meet her later on this afternoon.  Both outings were very enjoyable, but goodness, I don’t feel great just yet.

It’s now Friday September 1^st.

This afternoon someone from Access is due to come and do some cleaning. I’ve finally got this re-established!  Of course, I’m a bit nervous; this is someone I haven’t met before, and I need to show her where everything is. But she’s lovely, and I’m very grateful to have the bathrooms cleaned and the floors mopped.

It’s now Saturday September 2^nd.

It’s a beautiful fine day today. We went shopping to New World in Thorndon; it was very busy there, but we got most of what we wanted. 

Last night we rewatched the first three episodes of The Jewel in the Crown, another old BBC television series filmed with great dedication. It’s hard to watch, though – you see British rule at its worst, in my view, and any brave souls who attempt to “cross the river” and have some meaningful interaction, are doomed to the scorn of the other British people.  This is hard to watch, but interesting, nonetheless.

In the US, there is a chaotic number of trials and hearings as some defendants seek early trials, with or without severance from other trials; all the time things are getting worse for Trump and his co-conspirators, and they are pretty chaotic in Georgia. In Georgia, everything is different: republicans, justice and court procedures are different, the Fulton County jail is truly awful, and people die there without having been condemned to death.   Mark Meadows chose to testify, and this has been deemed to be an unwise move.  The Trump trial will be televised and livestreamed; in New York, AG Letitia James has determined that Trump greatly overvalued his properties for tax purposes; and so on.  Conservative legal moves to say Trump is ineligible to run for President again are being taken more and more seriously.  Are republicans starting to turn against Trump? 

Meanwhile, both Tim Miller of the Bulwark and Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, both respected journalists, said that Biden was the best president in their lifetime!  Now that is really something.

It’s now Thursday again, September 7^th.

I haven’t written for a few days. I’m still not going anywhere much, and continuing to cancel my regular activities.  I am trying, though. On Monday we went into town so JD could get a blood test, and afterwards we had lunch at Picnic Café at the Rose Garden and Begonia House.  I had creamy mushrooms on toast, and afterwards had a brief look at the Begonia House. I had last been there years ago when some American visitors visited there. But the Begonia House was not nearly as wonderful as I remembered it, and there were very few water lilies in the lily pond.  Afterwards, we went home and I had an asthma attack and then heartburn, which I haven’t had for years.

On Wednesday we went to The Borough in Tawa for lunch, where I had Croque Monsieur, and an oat milk latté. Then we came home. This morning the group I sing with is giving a concert at a rest home in Crofton Downs; I was offered a lift there by two of my friends, but declined; I didn’t have a great night, and although I knew the songs, I didn’t want to go somewhere I hadn’t been before. These concerts are always challenging! 

Overseas, there are crises: in Great Britain, the RAAC concrete crisis where schools were warned the day before they were due to resume after the long summer break, that this concrete formed a risk, and they should advise the Education Ministry if they were affected.  But it seems that NHS hospitals and courts may also be affected.  This is a major crisis, since the previous Labour government had a program of rebuilding schools, which was severely cut by the incoming Tory government, when Rishi Sunak was Treasurer.  Oh dear, the secretary for education Jillian Keegan, was holidaying – somewhere – and because of airplane difficulties (Air Traffic Control?) she couldn’t get back before the questionnaire went out.  She was later interviewed on television, and a hot mike caught her swearing, after the interview, and upset at not being told she was doing a good job.  Well, that didn’t go down well at all.  The Tories look absolutely tone deaf and uncaring on this issue; parents and teachers and principals of course are outraged, and complain of mice and leaks and lack of repairs on LBC radio.  In New Zealand, this type of concrete was not used, apparently.

In the US, Trump’s popularity remains undimmed, in the polls. The court cases are turning into a morass, with Sidney Powell and the lawyer Kenneth Chesebro asking for early trials. A Café insider podcast called it “Musical Trials”.  There is lots of evidence, which is interesting, of course; meanwhile, Trump is to pay damages to E. Jean Carroll for defaming her; the question, is how much? Meanwhile, another Mar-a-Lago employee has agreed to testify against Trump. Sidney Powell’s lawyer argues that she really had nothing to do with Trump’s attempt to hold on to power: remember all the strange people that were charged under Robert Mueller? The coffee boys? Wasn’t Sidney Powell going to be named as  Special Counsel?  Didn’t she appear at a press conference with Rudolf Giuliani? Didn’t she claim that Hugo Chavez, long dead, had influence the election against Trump?  Wasn’t she called crazy by a Trump ally?

Oh, and Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest January 6 defendant sentence yet. Last week there were two lengthy prison sentences as well.

On television, we have been watching episodes of The Jewel in the Crown on television. This has inspired me to reread the Raj Quartet, which is very readable. It interests me how stratified societies are, both the English in India, and the Indians themselves, where the divisions between Hindu and Muslim are just the beginning. Even English people who are sympathetic to Indian people, like Miss Edwina Crane, Daphne Manners, or Sarah Layton, and would like to be friends, don’t know how to communicate without giving offence, with either English of Indian society.  Everyone presents in a certain way, but they also hide a great deal. We have situations where Lady Chatterjee, whose husband, now deceased, was honoured by the English King, was not allowed to go to certain areas, of the hospital run by the English, for example. Everything is stratified, and at mission schools children are taught “There’s a Friend for Little Children, Above the bright blue sky”, implying that God cares about them, despite seemingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary; and then taught about Queen Victoria, Empress of India;  it’s hard to see any problem resolution here, although it’s evident that some British people love India and its range of expressions of spirituality.  I don’t doubt that God is Good, and loves and cares about us all; there are many situations that I don’t have answers to, although some governments are much more egalitarian than others in handling the many problems caused by poverty.

In Ukraine, the war continues, rather badly, I think; although Ukrainian forces are having some success, Russia continues to attack cities in Ukraine, killing and maiming citizens reach time. The Russians have planted heaps of mines, sometimes three deep. On the other hand, Ukrainian drones, made from cardboard, have damaged several expensive Russian planes.  And so it goes on, brutal as ever. I think one has to agree that despite Ukrainian successes, it is very hard to get the Russians out where they have seized territory.

In the US, with reference to the various trials, things have got pretty confusing in Georgia. There was a hearing, which was televised, so we saw the backs of lawyers’ heads, and the judge. The judge seems to be doing a remarkably good job, although he’s new to being a judge, and he’s quite young. It seems that Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell both want early trials, but not together.  That’s understandable.  I’ll quote Benjamin Wittes, from an email newsletter:

“So, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell will be tried together on Oct. 23 in Fulton County court, assuming the racketeering case against them and Donald J. Trump and a bunch of others remains in Fulton County court and doesn’t get removed to federal court—which remains to be seen. They will be tried together, despite wanting to be tried separately, but they will be tried separately from the other 17 co-defendants—including Trump—unless, that is, District Attorney Fani Willis can convince the judge to keep them all together, which seems unlikely but isn’t yet certain.

Or something like that.”

If Ben Wittes is confused, I’ll bow to that.

It’s now Friday September 8^th.

It’s  beautiful fine, warm, sunny day today.  My new lady from Access came to do some housework, which was much appreciated.

Last night we watched “Staying On”, a film based on the novel Staying On by Paul Scott, a follow up to his Raj Quartet. I had watched it years ago, but I hadn’t remembered how sad it was.  It was written by and had different characters from the earlier, mega series, although some of the settings seemed the same.

Today I learnt that Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser for a time, has been held in contempt of Congress on two counts.

As it’s Thursday in the US, the Bulwark podcast was another weekly episode of the Trump Trials series where Charlie Sykes gets to speak with Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare, and whoever Ben brings with him – perhaps Anna Bower, or Roger Parloff, who was on this morning.  It’s good to hear Wittes explain legal stuff to Charlie; I have a lot of time for Ben Wittes, although the American legal stuff can be amazingly frustrating.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

Fulton County jail, in Georgia, USA

Today is Thursday August 24^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Well, there’s lots going on right now.  A number of people are surrendering to the authorities in Fulton County, Georgia; that would be the Fulton County jail, which, according to Ben Wittes, is not a nice place.  As Michael Moore wryly remarks, Trump will have to set foot in this jail as part of his surrender; i.e. he will see the inside of a jail. So that is noteworthy.

In other big news, it’s said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner Group, and would-be coup inciter back in June (I think), is one of several passengers in a plane crash, where all the people on board (ten passengers) were killed.  So, that raised a number of questions:  was he really killed? Was it is accident, or the result of poor maintenance? Was the plane shot down? If so, by whom? What really happened here? I suspect we’ll never know, since there are apparently no survivors. Who will lead the Wagner Group now? And what happens to their activities in Africa? Was this supposed death an Act of God, or an act of Vladimir Putin? And what will happen now?

Apparently the plane was an Embraer, owned by the Wagner Group; it was on its way from St Petersburg to Moscow.

Back here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, there are constant polls, mostly if not all bad for Labour.  But some strange things are happening. Part of Lambton Quay is to be severely disrupted by the start of LGWM activities (Let’s Get Wellington Moving), an initiative that’s been around for a long time, was narrowly approved by the Wellington City Council, but which National Party leader Chris Luxon vows that a National government won’t support. I thought it was mainly about a Basin reserve flyover, and a second Mount Victoria Tunnel; silly me, it involves huge disruption to Lambton Quay, no doubt affecting bus routes, and what limited parking remains there. This comes upon the closure of Wishbone outlets, the lack of people coming back into the CBD for work, as zoom is increasingly unreliable. And who can blame people for not wanting to get dressed up for work, when public transport is so unreliable. Then there are the bike lanes too; while I can understand attitudes of people who wish to ride a bike everywhere, it can be really hard to drive on narrow streets, avoiding other traffic and bikers, to say nothing of finding a parking place. And there are some places it’s very hard to get to on public transport – Te Papa is one, Commonsense Organics near the top of Tory Street is another. And if you’re walking, you have to dodge e-bikes on the footpath too.  To add to this, it’s planned to close the Melling Station in Lower Hutt for 18 months, and then I read in this morning’s paper that a newish building in Wellington is to be pulled down and replaced. Huh?  There are already many treasured buildings regarded as earthquake risks, with limited use by the public, though of course they haven’t fallen down yet. It’s very hard to see any kind of normal future arising out of all of this.

Back to overseas:  Prigozhin’s death is now being called an assassination, by Russian State television; Putin says he made some serious mistakes, whatever that means. That does not leave us much the wiser, though.

In the UK, there is a lot of publicity around Lucy Letby, the neo-natal nurse who was found guilty of murdering several infants (7), and the attempted murder of several more. As with the Met police, a much darker side of medical authority is emerging, where it was really difficult for whistle-blowers to speak up about any concerns they may have had. What a desperately sad story. There are situations when we or our loved ones are totally in the hands of the medical folk who care for us. We are fully dependant on them.

It’s now Friday August 25^th.

I have another doctor’s appointment at 4:30 pm this afternoon (in a cabin, what is my car registration).  I duly take a Covid 19 test, and again, it’s negative.  Actually I feel better today than yesterday, but yesterday wasn’t good. I do feel a bit better today, but I’ve had to cancel several upcoming events, and I promised that I would get seen again.

There’s news, of course: the republican presidential debate, minus Donals Trump; the expected entry of Trump into Fulton County jail (not a salubrious environment); and more about the death of Prigozhin. With regard to the latter, Putin has stated that this very good businessman made some mistakes; it seems undoubted that Prigozhin’s plane was shot down; there seemed to be no mechanical failure beforehand.  So the message is very clear: don’t annoy Putin in any way, or you’ll be a dead man walking.

With regard to the republican debate, it was predictably upsetting – only one hopeful (Asa Hutchinson) believed that humans have played and continue to play a part in climate change.  They’re divided about supporting Ukraine. Ron de Santis managed to avoid any direct questions.  Christie attacked Trump, to jeers. All but one will vote for Trump if he’s the republican nominee for president, even if he’s convicted. European nations are predictably upset at the prospect of Trump becoming president again, as are many of the rest of us.

And then Trump surrendered to the Fulton County jail.  He did this in prime time, and it was duly covered by all the networks.  We were treated to ongoing coverage of his motorcade winding through Atlanta freeways, which had no doubt been cleared. There was an alarming parade (80?) of secret service agents on motorbikes, with flashing lights. There seemed to be few protesters. Although we did not see Trump enter the jail (there was a covered walkway for him to get out of his car)), his mugshot was taken, and released. He does not look best pleased with that. He said a few words afterwards, predictably feeling sorry for himself. Actually he looks like an angry old man, in contrast to smiling, honourable, Joe Biden. What a contrast. Goodness knows Biden has plenty to be angry about, but his empathy and general decency is astonishing.

I watched much of the coverage: John Dickerson on CBS, the local Atlanta channel, and MSNBC, of course, where Rachel Maddow spoke to a black man who had been a district attorney.  Trump has apparently changed lawyers.  He also promised Rudy Giuliani, who gave himself up to the jail yesterday, $800,000 for helping him to overturn the 2020 election. Giuliani has not received this money, and his New York apartment is on the market.

But the thing I find truly ironic is that it’s this Georgia indictment, where Atlanta, the capital of the South, that has the greatest potential to harm Trump and his co-defendants. Here, in the south of the US, where Republican state governments have been so unkind to black people, it’s black people who are now in charge: as Trump and his 18 co-defendants hand themselves in to the Fulton County jail, it’s not they who are in charge.  They are being told what they may and may not do; they’re having mugshots taken, a time-honoured American legal tradition, and they are having to ask D.A. Fani Willis about court trial dates and accommodations.  The whole situation, of rich folk in their gated communities, with their private jets and private schools, has been turned on its head, in that black people are now telling them what they can and cannot do. That is a delicious moment, and while it’s extremely significant to see a former president of the US indicted (four time), photographed, and released on bail conditions (which are becoming ever more strict), it’s coloured D.A.s and judges who are telling Trump and his gang of co-defendants just what they may or may not do. They are holding the cards, for once. What a moment!

And by the way, his bail conditions are ever more stringent, i.e. he mustn’t threaten anyone.

It’s now Saturday August 26^th.

I did see a doctor yesterday afternoon, and he’s prescribed antibiotics.  So far, I’ve had two doses, and I seem to be coping all right.

Last night we watched another two episodes of Brideshead Revisited. What an amazing series this is! We had Charles Ryder and Julia Mottram’s affair on board the ship crossing the Atlantic.  Charles is married, somewhat unaccountably;  he has two children, whom he doesn’t seem to care about at all, but then the rather wonderful Sir John Gielgud played his distant father (his mother had died), so not much in the way of parental role models there then.

JD is appalled by Charles’s neglect of his children; if he was away travelling so much, how did he father his son?  Perhaps he wasn’t the father. His wife, Celia, reminds me of one of JD’s aunts, she’s so much in control, as was Lady Marchmain. JD rather likes Celia and Rex Mottram; I rather liked Sebastian, when he was beautiful, and his sister Julia.  But really, as young people, did any of us make wise decisions? would we make the same decisions again?  I hope we’ve been better parents than anyone depicted in this series!

Reactions are still occurring to the death of Prigozhin (The Kremlin now disavows responsibility; I thought yesterday Putin was virtually admitting, yes I ordered it.  Is Prigozhin dead, then?  The plane went down, certainly.  But we’re still confused. Meanwhile, Russians are terrified.

In the US, the shock of the Republican debate is outshone by the mugshot of Donald Trump. While people are savouring that moment, Charlie Sykes and Tim Miller wondered on the Bulwark podcast this morning what Saturday Night Live would make of it.  Trump’s interview with Tucker Carlson is not garnering much attention, thankfully.

By now, all of Trump’s co-conspirators have surrendered to the Fulton County jail. One of them (a black man, who couldn’t raise bail), has actually been jailed. Evidently Sidney Powell has also asked for an early trial.  It’s interesting that machinations are continuing in the Georgia indictment, as the co-defendants are apparently falling over each other in their attempts to avoid further incrimination and a prison sentence.  Some of them are potentially incriminating Donald Trump. everyone was “just following orders”, of course. Where was your moral compass, then? And this is just in Georgia!  Where a black D.A. is calling the shots.  Evidently Trump, prisoner No. P01135809, lied about his weight and height, and said that his hair colour was “strawberry blond”.  He also hired someone to pay his bond, although he claims to be “really rich”, and changed his lawyer.  Michael Steele, a former chairman of the RNC, is rather enjoying this moment and had the number off pat. He’d memorised it.

So what’s more shocking then? Trump’s mugshot, or the All Blacks’ loss to the Springboks at Twickenham?  My brother-in-law, a New Zealander living in Australia who usually follows these matches on the family Messenger chat, did not do so this time. His cheery “Go the All Blacks!” was missing.  A conspiracy theorist would say it’s all his fault. The fact that the All Blacks were playing one man down probably affected the final outcome, but the Springboks, traditional rivals, must have played rather well.

It’s now Sunday August 27^th.

Last night we looked after one of my son’s children, while their parents went out for the evening. They are so grown up now, and quite capable of taking themselves to bed. What a joy to see them again. We watched Round the World in 80 Days, a film made in 2004 based on the book by Jules Verne, and I have to say it was quite fun to watch.  After the children had gone to bed, we watched the last two episodes of Brideshead Revisited, where Lord Marchmain goes back to Brideshead to die. As he can’t climb stairs, he sets up court in a truly ornate bed in a Chinese drawing room on the ground floor, which Charles Ryder had never seen used.  The family members who are there dine with him here. Gone are the elaborate ceremonies around dinner, for the most part. Everyone still dresses, of course, as do the servants. As predicted, religion played a huge part here in the illness and death of Lord Marchmain, played very well by the great Laurence Olivier. There were several surprises:  Bridey’s engagement to a widow with three children (a fervent Catholic, but not in De Brett’s); Lord Marchmain’s making Brideshead over to Lady Julia Flyte (don’t get me started on the naming conventions in the English aristocracy!), and the breakup of Julia and Charles Ryder’s relationship.  But a catholic priest did visit Lord Marchmain, and on his second visit he was able to administer the last rites.  JD and I had interesting discussions about all this, of course, and I wondered, should I be alive at the time of his death, would he like a priest to visit, and, if so, who? And how much should I pay them?   I warned him he might have to put up with a non-Catholic minister; in any case, the reformed churches stress one’s personal relationship with God, rather than requiring intercession through a priest. Heavy stuff, indeed. Sin, and the catholic church’s rules about annulment, divorce and remarriage, played a huge part in everyone’s behaviour and their relationships, but what a story. Charles is kind of converted at the end – or is he? I found his prayer a bit hard to take, but then I’m just an onlooker, and I personally decided long ago not to become a Catholic.

I zoomed into the church service this morning. Zoom was still having some issues, particularly with the sound, but when I turned it up on my PC is was much better. There seemed to be very few physical church goers.  The texts were from Exodus, when Pharoah’s daughter saves the baby Moses, and his mother gets to look after him, and from Matthew 16 where Jesus asks his disciples Who do they say that He is?  Simon Peter has that wonderful response, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

In Russia, Wagner mercenaries are asked by Putin to pledge their allegiance to Russia after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In the US, there’s been another mass shooting – in a store in Florida, not in a school. I just watched a very moving press conference, where a black official, the sheriff, spoke well about this tragedy. Evidently the shooter took his own life. He carried a Glock pistol and an AR15 type weapon. He was on a mission to kill “niggers”. Officials are devastated, of course, but this happens far too often. The shooter was male, of course.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Nga mihi nui.

The beautiful Castle Howard, where Brideshead Revisited was filmed

It’s now Tuesday August 22^nd, 2023. Kia ora!

Actually, it’s still Monday afternoon. I posted my previous blog because I felt I had said all I had to say, at that point.

But I’ve turned to a more intellectual bent, this afternoon. The Rest is History released a podcast about the Library of Alexandria, that was destroyed; I have also discovered the text of Orwell’s essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”, written in 1941, which the London Review of Books has a podcast about.  For some reason I can listen to these podcasts, but the reviewer reviews great essays, at great length which, of course, makes you want to read them. Anyway, it’s a joy to read Orwell, he was such a great writer, although research is emerging now about his perhaps unemancipated attitude towards his long-suffering wife. A book has been published, and was reviewed in the latest Economist.

Nevertheless, things and attitudes were different, then, whatever we think nowadays, and he wrote beautifully. I enjoy reading his work.  As Michael Che said on a Saturday Night Live show, something to the effect of in future I’ll apologise for something I’m doing now, being presently unaware of how it will be regarded in future, and necessary to be apologised for. 

Here’s a link to the review:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/past-present-future/id1682047968

I was talking to JD about this podcast, and about this essay written during the Blitz, in 1941, when the future was unknown, and Great Britain (with the help of Australia and New Zealand, not mentioned) was fighting the Nazi menace almost alone; it must have been a terrifying time; JD of course had plenty to say about everything, not having read Orwell’s essay or listened to the podcast. But I have to admit I do disagree with Orwell about some things: English gentleness?  I think not. Look at how suffragettes were treated. Look at how so-called criminals were hanged, or sent to Australia, for perhaps stealing a loaf of bread. We toured Lancaster Castle in 2016, which had been used for a prison until five years earlier. There was nothing gentle about being locked in a very basic holding cell in total darkness for several seconds.  And English not celebrating military victories? What about the great Battle of Trafalgar? Still, it’s fun to be a little critical. And Orwell does write very perceptively about what it meant to be English, and indeed what it meant as represented to me until I went there in the early 1970’s.  I had read much, but was still shocked at the seemingly endless landscape of Coronation Street(s) as our plane was stacked over Heathrow in 1973; compared to them, the state houses of the Hutt Valley looked palatial to me, after we returned to New Zealand.

I find Orwell’s writing about British patriotism is very interesting. The ideal of patriotism has been corrupted, when right-wing movements have taken it over to mean some dominant master race should be in charge; xenophobia rules, and women have to be kept under control; these so-called “freedoms” must be protected with gun violence, if necessary.  But in the recent Brexit move, one could see British patriotism displayed at large, although many people were against leaving the European Union.  That was, and remains, a scary time, as stupidity overrode basic self-interest. In my view. Well it’s done now, Boris Johnson has resigned, the waterways are a mess, mortgage payment and heating bills have skyrocketed, things have changed forever, and who, exactly, has benefited? Who indeed.  I guess Putin regards that, and Trump’s 2016 election, as successes worthy of his cynical investment.

Back to the essay. It’s extremely interesting, but one has to remind oneself that the treachery of the Cambridge Five, including Kim Philby, and the likes of George Blake, were unknown at that time, though surely the ground was ripe for socialist thinking. It’s ironic that Orwell, so sympathetic to people with less money, and so aware of England’s class and caste system, was able to write Animal Farm, exposing the ghastly inequities of Stalin’s communism.  A plague on both your houses, then!

Orwell also claims that apart from Shakespeare, the British aren’t really artistic. I know many great singers and conductors would disagree, but surely the British were masters (and sometimes mistresses) of the novel!  To say nothing of great poetry. As one who completed a Masters Degree in English Literature in the 1970’s, and mastered in literature of the Renaissance I strongly beg to differ. You may despise many of Dickens’ novels, but he was a great writer, as was Thackeray, George Eliot, Jane Austen et al.  I don’t want to offend anyone here, and the longer ones do take some reading. I should mention Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Milton here too. But The English are very good at drama, of all kinds, and at comedy, with their wry sense of humour, and readiness to offend. At the time of the Brexit referendum, I joked they were very good at Royal Weddings (well, the pageantry thereof) and at comedy.  This was demonstrated again recently with Queen Elisabeth II’s platinum jubilee, her funeral, which followed soon afterwards, and the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Since Brexit, sadly, there hasn’t been much to laugh about.

Here’s a link to Orwell’s essay:

https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/lionunicorn.html

It is now actually Tuesday.

This morning, alas, I don’t feel great; I’m still coughing and have a lot of catarrh. I have engagements next weekend, and I’m wondering which of them I’ll have to cancel.  Perhaps I should go to the doctor again?  This is frustrating. It feels like it did when I had Covid, and wondered if I would ever get better enough to do the things I used to do.

Oh, and Trump has confirmed he won’t attend the republican debate. Nor will he sign a pledge to support the Republican candidate.  That’s not surprising.  Ali Velshi chaired a discussion on MSNBC in which he interviewed Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and discussed Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, like skipping the debate.

In the Georgia indictment, Trump and his co-defendants have to surrender to the Fulton County jail by August 25; bail has been set for each. Now, that will be a moment (or few)! 

But yesterday a group of republicans claimed to believe Trump more than their own pastor (I think many of us outside the US would not always agree with a minister, but one would expect him/her to speak the truth as they saw it), or their friends or family.  That is truly shocking. In another statement, Trump, interviewed on Fox News, claimed that “I was the apple of Putin’s eye”, and that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been president, implying that Trump would have influenced him not to mount this Special Military Operation in Ukraine0. That’s interesting, because at the time Trump claimed that Putin’s move was genius. I guess one should be used to the fact by now that opposing facts can both be claimed as true.  Of course, Trump may have claimed that Ukraine was the apple of Putin’s eye, in which case, one might wonder why he’s doing so much to destroy the place and render Russians extremely unpopular there, for the most part.

In response to a question about Ukraine giving up Crimea to appease Russia, as a means to end the fighting, Zelensky asked if Russia would be willing to give up Belgorod, which is close to the Ukrainian border but presently within Russia.  Evidently Belgorod was once part of Ukraine, under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in March 1918.  At the end of World War II, Belgorod became part of Russia again, after the Russians recaptured it from German troops.  Ah, that treaty has a lot to answer for.

I listened to Ukraine The Latest, the Telegraph’s weekday podcast, in which they interviewed an American cosmonaut. This was with particular reference to a Russian unmanned spacecraft which recently crash-landed on the moon. He was intelligent and well-spoken. At the end, it emerged that Telegraph journalists have joined the growing list of people banned from entering Russia.  There was some joking about Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which Francis Dearnley joked that he would henceforth call Dominic Nicholls Snowball, if Dom would call him Napoleon.  In regard to the alerts Francis received about his travel ban, he joked that perhaps Dom had taken off his shirt in the Telegraph newsroom. It’s nice to see that these guys have a sense of humour.

With regard to Orwell, I have to admit that I tired of reading the essay’s latter part, where he writes about the coming English revolution. I admit that I’m far more interested in history than in economics, although of course they’re so closely bound together. The revolution did come, of course, in the form of the election of the Labour Party to government with a resounding majority, after World War II, and the creation of the NHS.  But it was muted, of course; it didn’t get rid of the (unelected) House of Lords, but it did preserve a kind of democracy. And the British people do, for the most part, love the Royal Family. In fact since the shenanigans that have continued since Prine Harry’s wedding to Sparkle (Meghan Markle), the Royal Family has continued to be in the news and be a focus of attention, both in the UK and to some extent, in the US too. So much for that. The pageantry and regalia and beautiful behaviour of the Prince and Princess of Wales continue to provide a lovely distraction from the ghastly political scenes in both nations.

Getting back to US politics. Apparently Trump will have to put up USD200.00 in bail, 20% of it being in cash. But given Trump’s hold over republicans, Judge Michael J. Luttig and Professor Laurence Tribe must be so frustrated, after their major effort, and wide publicity, of their contention that Trump is not eligible to stand for public office again.

It’s now Wednesday August 23^rd.

There was no hymn singing this morning; the organist is to have major surgery today. I don’t think I would have gone, anyway, although I won’t try to see the doctor again today.  I think my cold is slightly better, although I still have a sore chest.  I shower and wash my hair, and put the washing on. I also load and start he dishwasher. I tidy up a little.

Back in US politics, some of Trump’s co-defendants have surrendered to the Fulton County jail; Trump has said he will surrender too. MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian pointed out on Morning Joe that it’s a surrender, not an arraignment, that will be taking place. Meanwhile, instead of attending the Republican presidential candidate debate, an interview between Tucker Carlson (“I hate him passionately”), and Trump, pre-recorded will be screened on Twitter (?), sic.  Well, it’s not Twitter spaces, where Ron De Santis (failed to) launched his presidential campaign, or on X, so who knows.  It will be mildly interesting to hear what Christie, Pence, et al have to say, apart from the fact that democrats are terrible and Joe Biden is a terrible president. Oh, and climate change is not a thing to be concerned about, despite ongoing evidence to the contrary. It’s difficult to see how someone old and doddery can be such a mastermind of politically-motivated indictments, while being such an amazingly good president.

There’s a new Randy Rainbow song about the Georgia indictment: here’s a link.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=596N4aPnjrs

Oh, and one of the witnesses (employee number 4?) has retracted his false testimony in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  Evidently Giuliani can’t get a lawyer in Georgia. And Georgia has passed a law to enable the governor to get rid of an elected official, someone like Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, should he wish to do so. While it is totally undemocratic to get rid of elected officials, I think any move to get rid of Willis would be a bit like sacking Mueller. The wide-ranging fourth indictment is arguable the most serious yet, and has already had a great deal of public attention, and no doubt will continue to attract attention.

Back here in Aotearoa, last night I wondered if we could find the Granada Television 1981 series of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.  Well, we could get in on Youtube, and what a wonderful series it is, and how beautifully filmed, given that it’s not a current or recent Netflix series, and it’s a bit blurry at times. (Perhaps we can get I Claudius too).

I had quite forgotten the beginning of the series, which depicts Ryder’s part in the army during World War II.  JD was reticent about watching this, but we both found it quite entrancing to go back there, and see, amongst other things, the clash between the Catholicism of the Marchmains (which features so prominently in the book) and Agnosticism or Atheism (as with Charles Ryder and his father). I am reminded of the novel The Masters by C. P. Snow, about a college in Cambridge University, which forms the setting for many of his novel sequence Strangers and Brothers, where one of the dons is firmly sceptical about any faith, although the election of a new master of the college is held in the college chapel. There’s also a great study of Jewishness too.  And again, of Herman Wouk’s Winds of War, where the Jewish Professor Jastrow takes issue with Byron Henry, who finds the art of the Italian Renaissance a tad boring – that’s Protestantism, says Jastrow.  Again, the novel sequence by Olivia Manning, Fortunes of War, features Guy Pringle, a university teacher and an avowed communist and atheist. In 1930’s Britain it was not unfashionable to be agnostic, or even atheistic.  At least they’re honest about their misconceptions; although communism is founded on the Christian principle of sharing so that everyone can participate in the general good.  Sadly, this has been perverted everywhere it has been tried, I believe. I find it so strange that in America many people profess to believe in God and go to church, while doing some very ungodly things and holding some very ungodly beliefs.  Even Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was recently treated with scepticism by an evangelical!  Some American commentators speak about the kinds of Christian values they were brought up with, that are ignored nowadays in the age of Trump.

Well, that’s enough for now.  Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

Residents at Long Beach, California prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Hilary

It’s now Friday August 18^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Well, a bunch of interesting facts has emerged regarding Trump’s indictments.

Learned, white lawyerly commentators are casting some shade on D.A. Fani Willis’s Georgia “sprawling” indictment and New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s indictment;  could it be any coincidence that they are both black, and no, they’re not pussy-footing around. So which of the four is likely to do Trump the most harm?  Some think the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, and the Georgia indictment. But no one really knows. I’m quite upset at people thinking that 4 March 2024 is unrealistically soon for a big trial; but many if not all of the co-conspirators may seek plea deals, thus avoiding a televised trial. Jenna Ellis is appealing for donations to assist her ability to pay legal fees; I believe Rudy Giuliani is too. It seems Trump is totally unlikely to repay his friends loyalty by helping them out in their hour of need. Who would have thought it!

Mehdi Hasan’s commentary on MSNBC’s Peacock sums it up nicely, including the terrible threats faced by Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss; here’s a link:

The Lawfare team, headed by Benjamin Wittes, who happened to be in Finland at the time of the fourth indictment, has logged several podcasts, despite Ben’s lack of sleep. He’s persisting in his ERAS attempts, that acronym being short for Eradication of Russian Ambassadors’ Sleep; this is part of his response to Putin’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine.  While that is very commendable, the Finnish police stepped in to thwart his latest planned activity. In a Finnish town near the Russian border, he’s feeling a bit more vulnerable, and looks to NATO for support. Yes, Washington D.C. is a very long way from any conflict between nations, and from the scary tentacles of President Putin or President Xi.

Lawfare has a newish reporter, Anna Bower, who has been on the ground in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia as each indictment took place; she also was present for each court appearance by Trump where he gave himself up, to be released on bail. Bower has described all these situations very well, including having to hire a place-holder in the queue of press and other would-be observers. She has written an article on the activities in Coffee County, where voting machines were seized illegally. The only thing is, she reports very well, but I find her voice really hard to listen to sometimes; it can be very strident, especially lately and I guess this is because she’s very tired.  Some voices are much easier to listen to than others, and generally I prefer male voices, as long as they don’t lisp!  Editing and production are vital to remove hesitations. For the most part, the podcasts I choose to listen to are very well produced.

Apparently Trump’s small legal team is looking for volunteer lawyers.  This raises questions about whether they can be shown classified documents. It was reported on MSNBC’s Morning Joe the day before yesterday that Trump stiffed the lawyers fighting his 2^nd impeachment.

A video has emerged, first appearing on Ari Melber’s The Beat, showing Roger Stone dictating plans to “win” the presidential election, before it was even called for Joe Biden.  He is not yet named as a co-conspirator. This is on film,

Then there is the issue of Trump’s DMs (Direct Messages) on the then Twitter, eventually obtained by Jack Smith, although Elon Musk tried to stop this happening. Evidently he’s been happy to hand over such information to dictators keen to pursue their opposition. The use of DM’s by a president is insecure and inappropriate.

There’ve been threats against members of the grand jury in Georgia, against Fani Willis, and against Judge Tanya Chutkan; there is even an effort to impeach Willis by a Republican senator in the state of Georgia.

In other news, where Trump was going to hold a press conference justifying his claim of election fraud, but it has now been cancelled.  He claims his lawyers advised him not to go ahead with it. Some suspect they threatened to quit should he do so.

Apparently Mark Meadows is first to request removal of his trial to a different location. But it will still be Fani Wills prosecuting him, and doing illegal things for the former president after he’d lost the election may not be regarded as part of his day job.

Republicans have been a bit more cautious in rushing to Trump’s defence since the Georgia indictment; recent polls advise that the voting public regards the latest indictment as being quite serious, and affecting their voting decision for the presidential election of 2024.  Lindsey Graham has advised that any wrong doing should be decided at the ballot box! Oops, that is the cause of the indictments: the loser’s refusal to accept the result at the ballot box of the presidential election!  Isn’t is ironical that Republicans are so quick to accuse poorer, black people of fraud, probably because that’s what they would do themselves!  A handful of cases of voting fraud were reported: they all involved republicans.

In local news, food chain Wishbone is in liquidation. That is actually quite shocking: they were everywhere, in Wellington, anywhere: at the Airport, at the Hospital, at Victoria University, or whatever it calls itself now; with many retail outlets in the CBD. Like the earlier hamburger chains, they were reliable, and did some things really well: their potato gratin, which I bought regularly; chicken and almond sandwiches, chicken and mushroom risotto, and for a treat, beef and mushroom dinner with mashed potato. They also did a delicious chocolate fudge. They did not do coffee, scones, or salads so well, but if course you don’t have to buy them. At Wellington Hospital last week I asked for an oat milk latté; they only had coconut milk, and it came in a cardboard cup. Well, I couldn’t drink it.

It’s now Sunday August 20^th.

Yesterday we went shopping to the New World supermarket in Thorndon. It was very busy, and we had to park some way away.  But it was nice, of course; we bought cold pies to reheat since they had sold out of heated ones!  In a nod to the now departed Wishbone, we bought a dinner meal to reheat. There were only three Wishbone meals left, and sadly, no potato gratin.  JD thinks their problem was wastage; that hasn’t been mentioned in any of the press stories, btu they were probably over-exposed in Wellington.  But they were an attractive option.  Actually I read in this morning’s newspaper that from early on they donated lef00t over food to Kaibosh, one of the charities against food wastage. So well done for that.

Afterwards we had lunch at Simmer Café in Churton Park, where we shared one of their yummy pizzas and enjoyed oat milk lattés.  We later heated our pies for dinner.  The pizza does have spinach on it, so we did get some greens.

Last night I felt much better, but I did not sleep very well. We watched The Third Man on Youtube. I listened to several podcasts during the night. There were intermittently peals of thunder and heavy rain showers.

This morning I did not go to church. Our service is at JUC this morning, but I couldn’t zoom in anywhere, not there or at St John’s in Willis St as I did last January. Zoom, out great friend during the Covid pandemic, is very unreliable now. Zoom, we hated you at times, but we surely miss you when you’re unreliable.

It’s now Monday August 21^st.

Yesterday I didn’t go anywhere. I had felt better on Saturday night, and thought I was being such a fraud, but I ended up not going to church, sending an apology for the Fashion Parade charity event I was going to attend; we were supposed to have dinner at my son’s house but his daughter is very unwell so we agreed to postpone; just as well, too, because I had a bad coughing fit in the evening. So I didn’t go anywhere.

Here in Aotearoa, the election debate continues, but evidently young people are to be taught financial literacy before leaving school. Well, that’s great, and it would certainly have benefited me.  David Seymour claims that it will have to compete with teaching about the Treaty of Waitangi.  Reading this, I am reminded that there are disputes about the translation of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi itself, what it actually means, and what it meant when it was signed; in fact understanding of Te Tiriti should underpin any understanding of financial literacy, in my view; how can you have a well-rounded human being without either?

This morning I was watching a livestream of Roddy Stronach’s funeral in the Hall at Hohepa in Clive, until unfortunately the livestream cut out.  Roddy was one of the founding members of Hohepa: when he was born with Down Syndrome, the youngest

of four siblings, his aunt, Marjorie Allan, was inspired to set up Hōhepa, an anthroposophical organisation which started in Hawkes Bay, and is now also in Auckland (Titirangi), Christchurch (Barrington Street), and Otaihanga near Waikanae. So Roddy’s birth, 75 years ago, was fundamental to the organisation coming into being in Aotearoa New Zealand.  It brought with it the concept of curative education, of organic food, of a different way of living and caring and appreciating each other; it’s “Special Character” encompasses all faiths and respects and accepts all people. I have called it “a good deed in a naughty world”, quoting Shakespeare, of course.

It strikes me as ironic that Roddy, a “high functioning” person with Down Syndrome, would have great difficulty in getting into Hohepa nowadays. It seemed that he could write, and he had a lovely disposition. My daughter can write too, but she doesn’t always have a lovely disposition, although mostly she does. I don’t think she is nearly as high functioning as Roderick was. But we had great trouble getting her into Hohepa. Hohepa has its ups and downs, to be sure, but it maintains its Special Character, for the most part, and remains a special place, a haven for our special children and family members. Their care is greatly enhanced by all the celebrations of birthdays, of festivals, and of life in general. We have all learnt so much from Hōhepa.

The livestream of Roddy’s funeral was good, i0nitially, the setting was quite simple. They began with Bach’s beautiful Air on a G String. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a good recording of this wonderful music. I settled for the following, although it’s not great, in my view:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkmQlfOJDk

The congregation sang “The King of Love my Shepherd is, Whose Goodness Faileth Never, I Nothing Lack if I am His, and He is Mine Forever” to a piano accompaniment.  And because I’m sentimental, and this made me tear up, here’s a link:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d50KE9jMVWY

The choir also sang an item, beautifully: Crossing the Bar, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here’s a link, although the Hohepa folk sang it better, I think.

Actually I searched for other recordings while I was having my lunch. Here’s a far better one, with the advantage that you can see the singers and the words: sorry about the annoying ad in the beginning.

The livestream panned out to show a full Hall, where I recognised many people, with the musical groups at the back.  The House Manager of Harris House gave a tribute to Roddy.  There was a poem, and Santi spoke, of course, and then the livestream cut out. I was unable to refresh it, but it came back on at the end: the coffin had departed from the hall, and the choir was singing Dona Nobis Pacem. Apparently I can replay this service later if I wish.  Note: I’ve tried, without success.

Anyway, Hōhepa do death and funerals and remembrance with great respect and dignity. They favour cremation, which I do not; we’ve bought a funeral plot in a cemetery in Napier, but I am favouring having a funeral for our daughter in the Clive Hall, should the need arise (we were very nervous during the Covid pandemic, especially before vaccinations and Paxlovid).  Now she’s had Covid twice, with seemingly no ill-effects, and we’re very thankful for that. She may well outlive both her parents.

In the US, Trump’s various legal troubles hold sway and continue to dominate the news waves, although a tropical storm is bearing down on Mexico and Southern California, which could do great damage. It’s interesting to dip into now and again. I watched a Next Level podcast where the Bulwark’s Tim Miller spoke to Robbie Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer; The New Yorker also let me listen to one of their podcasts with Evan Osnos, Susan Glasser, and Jane Mayer – I think it’s a weekly podcast called The Political Scene.

Yesterday Emeritus Professor of Law at Harvard Laurence Tribe and Conservative Judge Michael J. Luttig went on MSNBC and CNN and possibly other networks to talk about how Trump is disqualified under the Constitution from holding office again; they’ve also written an article in The Atlantic setting out this view.  Just as a reminder, Professor Tribe, who is a regular commentator on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, taught Ted Cruz and other lawyers who’ve then sought to “bend” the constitution, or use it in ways that the Founding Fathers did not intend. Be that as it may, they make a strong case.  It’s noted that the American legal system, for all its many flaws, held up multiple times against Trump’s efforts to steal the presidential election; he’s also quite unrepentant about the many crimes he is alleged to have committed – he has no shame, no guilt, whatsoever.

It’s also apparent that a cast of thousands or certainly many people tried to help Trump in his efforts to overturn the results of the democratic election.  One of his supposedly mild mannered lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro, who formerly espoused liberal causes, was at the heart of legal efforts to subvert the election. Apparently he was at Washington’s Capitol on January 6, following conspirator Alex Jones around: this is lawyering? This was caught on film, like so much of the evidence in these cases.  He was named in the Georgia indictment, and he’s suspected of being one of the co-conspirators not actually named by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  So the size of this operation continues to amaze me.  But what about Ginni Thomas and her texts and phone calls to Mark Meadows?  Why has she not been charged?  Note that she’s the wife of Clarence Thomas, a black man and a Supreme Court Justice. And what about Roger Stone?

Trump has indicated that he’ll skip the upcoming Republican debate by would-be republican candidates for the presidential nomination. This is to be hosted by Fox News, with Bret Baier and Martha McCallum as anchors. He’s seeking instead an interview with Tucker Carlson, formerly Fox’s poster boy, who resigned suddenly a few months ago.  It’s not known what platform this potential interview will be delivered on.  Carlson is on record as saying “I hate him passionately”, him being Trump.  Trump is also to present himself to the court in Fulton County by 25 August. It’s expected he’ll have a mug shot taken, be fingerprinted, and perhaps weighed; so there’ll be drama, whatever happens. Perhaps CNN will have a split screen, showing the debate and what, exactly?

The debate will be interesting, as Christie is going to attack Trump very effectively; Pence is getting braver in speaking out against his former boss; Asa Hutchinson and Sununu won’t support Trump, but Ron de Santis was advised to support Donald Trump, in a debate-prep memo that was released days ago. Huh?

That’s it for now.  Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.

The Georgia Indictment is eventually released

Today is Friday August 11^th, 2023. Kia ora!

Today someone is supposed to come from Access, but the regular person is not available and my cold is still quite miserable, so I cancel. I could go into town and have my blood test, but I don’t even feel up to that.

It was a very cold start this morning (2°C), but it became much warmer during the day; I’m wearing a woollen roll-top jersey, but it’s almost too warm, a big contrast to the cold yesterday.

It’s now Sunday August 13^th.

On Friday I felt a bit coldy, but yesterday was worse: I had a really running nose all day, and I didn’t go out at all, although I’d had plans to go grocery shopping and perhaps go to one of the movies at Pauatahanui.  I wasn’t going anywhere!  JD brought something home for lunch, and we had takeaways for dinner. Last night we happened on Fisk on Netflix, an Australian comedy that takes a no-so-subtle dig at some annoying features of Australian society.  It may even have been written by a New Zealander!

This morning I feel better, although I’m still coughing lots. I get out the Prospan again.  I do a Covid 19 test; thankfully it’s negative.  I do plan to go shopping again, wearing a mask.  I tried to zoom into my church service, but sadly zoom is being totally frustrating:  there is video, but a constant buzzing, and I couldn’t hear the minister speaking. Another couple leave, and then I leave too.

But I did read Psalm 85, which is one of the readings, and the text for next Tuesday’s Bible Study from Genesis chapter 45, when Joseph makes himself known to his brothers, who had many years earlier tried to get rid of him.  It is such a moving scene; I hope I am well enough to go next Tuesday morning.

It’s now Tuesday August 15^th.

Sadly, I don’t feel great today. Yesterday was a special day, and I thought I was much better; we had lunch at the lovely Picnic Café at the Botanical Gardens Rose Garden, since all my favourite places were closed on a Monday. It was too early for roses, but it was lovely, anyway. Afterwards JD dropped me off in The Terrace to get my blood test. It was very busy at SCL labs, and I had to wait a while.  Afterwards I tried to go shopping, and wondered about having another coffee, but caught a bus to Churton Park.  Unfortunately I felt really unwell on the trip home.  A very large person sat next to me, and although other seats became available, they didn’t get off until we were well into Churton Park. I’ve no objection to someone sitting next to me, but I did find this a tad oppressive, probably because I wasn’t feeling well, and I wondered why they didn’t move as seats became available.

Last night I did not feel well, I’m afraid; I reheated leftovers for dinner, and we watched the episode of Brokenwood Murders that supposedly aired on Sunday evening.  By myself, I’ve been watching a series on Netflix called Painkiller, about efforts to bring the Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family to justice.  I found it immensely disturbing; I’ve read the terrible statistics, and listened to an American Scandal podcast series about this tragedy, but it’s still very upsetting to see just how difficult it remains to bring them to justice. They don’t express any remorse about the damage they’ve caused, not just to people who became addicted, but their families and those around them who suffer the consequences. The marketing techniques are very suspect, too.  Thank goodness we have a less commercial medical system here in New Zealand. What a dreadful health system the US has.

I take another Covid 19 test this morning, which, again, is negative.  There seemed to be no Covid report yesterday, and Prime Minister Hipkins announced that the two remaining Covid restrictions were removed: wearing masks in medical situations, and being in isolation for seven days if you test positive. The removal was effective more or less, immediately, I understand. At the SCL lab I dutifully wore my mask, and they had spare masks, but a woman sat next to me defiantly not wearing a mask.  Are you still supposed to notify a positive test? Is Healthline still supposed to ring you?

Meanwhile, I have excused myself from today’s Bible Study and tomorrow morning’s hymn singing.  I hope I’ll be well enough to attend events next weekend, and wonder if I should attempt the arduous task of trying to see a doctor.

In the US, (I do try to stay away from American politics!), everyone is awaiting a fourth indictment for Trump in Georgia.  It hasn’t happened yet, security is huge, and people are still testifying to the grand jury. I won’t comment further, except to say that Trump looks worried. That’s a change.

It’s now 1:20 pm here. Apparently the grand jury in Georgia has voted to indict Trump. There are ten indictments, apparently, but we don’t know yet what they are. So that’s news – the fourth indictment.  At last. It’s certainly been teased, this indictment. It’s being covered firstly by ANF, a channel that is new to me, based in Atlanta, I think. It’s now evening in America, so it’s all quite dramatic. 

Meanwhile, for the last few days, I’ve been following the deadly death toll from fires and a typhoon in Hawaii on the island of Maui; the shocking death toll was initially 6; I think that last I heard was 89, with more expected.  There are terrible sad stories of people dying in their cars; if escaping into the sea, if they could; pictures show complete devastation, like a bomb site. It’s been compared to Hiroshima.

Coming back to the Georgia indictments: I try watching TYT’s Chenk, CBS and CNN, but it is Rachel Maddow, of course, who delivers this news in style. Actually it’s assumed that at least one of the indictments is against Trump; this grand jury was looking into interference in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. News just broke that this interference was greater even than previously reported, with an  election machine being seized in one county (Coffee Country).

At 3:45 pm the New York Times reports that Trump and 18 others have been indicted. They’re published the list of indictments (41, not 40), and there are no surprises there: it includes Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Clarke, Jenna Ellis, Mark Meadows and others, all charged under RICO charges. They have until August 25 to surrender to the court in Atlanta. They also include someone who lied to and threatened Ruby Moss and tried to get her to confess to wrongdoing.

Now Rachel Maddow and her team are back, reading the indictments, and analysing them as they go; they’re getting quite good at this!

I am listening to this, while my cell phone coverage switches to another video. That is so annoying, but it often happens, alas.

It’s now Wednesday August 16^th.

Yesterday I rang to cancel today’s hair appointment; this morning I send an apology to my Te Reo class. I do ring the medical centre, and amazingly get an appointment in one of their cabins later on this morning. I take the last dose of cough mixture, so we’ll have to get some more. I do another Covid 19 test, and it’s negative, again. I still don’t feel like going anywhere.

I manage to cough lots at the doctor’s, but she finds my chest clear, although it hurts a bit and I’m coughing up coloured phlegm.  So she doesn’t prescribe antibiotics but she does prescribe Prednisone, if I need it. She’s nice and helpful, thankfully. 

When I get there, it’s raining again, and I haven’t worn a raincoat, just my waist length puffer jacket. Afterwards I make my way to the Johnsonville Shopping Centre to get my prescriptions made up. There’s no more faxing scripts to the wrong chemist.  JD has agreed to pick me up there, but not till much later. I don’t feel like shopping, but I offer to get lunch from Nada Bakery; an ambitious adventure, but I know he has a meeting in the early afternoon and not much time.

I make my way outside, but by now it’s raining really heavily, so I need to find a stronger tote bag, and my lunch bag, and cash card. I can’t find my woolly hat.  At Nada I buy some sandwiches and cakes; fortunately, it’s not crowded there, but it is a tad awkward, as one has to reach up to the eftpos machine, and they don’t offer to pack my goods like they would at Parsons’ in Khandallah.  I make my way outside, where it’s still pouring with rain. There’s nowhere to sit, and hardly anywhere to stand that’s not wet.  JD is to pick me up there, but I don’t see his car, although there are plenty of places to stop. Eventually I ring him, and he’s parked outside Westpac, quite a way down the road. 

Tomorrow morning a physiotherapist is coming at 9:30 am to do an urgent assessment for ACC. Although I have my Thursday singing later that morning, she insisted on coming to visit Cassandra.

I’ve listened to more coverage about the Georgia DA’s far-ranging indictment.  This is on a different level, though; these charges, if proved, carry minimum sentences of prison time, and furthermore, they cannot be pardoned, being state rather than federal charges. This is next level, serious stuff: Fani Willis is not pussying around, nor is she afraid of insults or offending anyone. You can now see the need for all the security.  Trump was right to look worried, if the file photo matched his so-called emotions; other indictments may still be coming.  The RICO charges seem particularly appropriate, given his liking and propensity for mob bosses. There are now four indictments on Trump for his activities around the January 6 insurrection. Four!

Okay, it seemed a tad disorganised, with the indictments being delivered late on what was their Monday night. But hey, go Fani Willis!  I have been rooting for her ever since it was announced that she was investigating events around the Georgia election.  Her rather annoying colleague, Gwen Keys-Fleming, kept appearing on MSNBC, as we waited breathlessly for her determinations. 

Despite the guys dreaming up some issues with this, most commentators are very impressed. This trial will be televised, and nay take place quite soon – in the next six months.  Marjorie Taylor Greene has rushed into Twitter’s new form, saying Fani Willis should concentrate on catching rapists.  Well, I seldom agree with MTG, but this time (like in her recent endorsement of Biden), she got it on the nail.  A New York judge has agreed that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll.

It’s now Thursday August 17^th.

I send apologies for singing this morning, and for my prayer group this afternoon. I’m not feeling great, and I wonder if the doctor got it right yesterday morning.  I’ still coughing and wheezing.

ACC send a physiotherapist to do an urgent assessment at 9:30 am.  Actually ACC have given her minimal information, and she asks me to recount what happened to me. It’s exhausting, of course, but she actually listens to what I have to say. That makes a pleasant change!

Meanwhile, the dust is kind of settling after Trump’s fourth indictment. One podcast I listened to was called May the Fourth Indictment be with you, in a funny nod to Star Wars.  It talked about the reality television aspect of these indictments: the huge team of journalists waiting around for news; the judge and other officials involved; the drama of an indictment being released, and then the analysis and discussion that follows, as the various crimes therein and co-conspirators are revealed and the implications spoken of.  One thing’s for sure, that despite admiration for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and his speedy work, there is even greater admiration and respect for Fani Willis, elected D.A. of Fulton County, Georgia, and the mass of evidence she has been able to uncover, and the fact that her grand jury voted for these indictments.  There is alternately a certain ennui – I’m so over/bored with this, shock as the former president’s indictments accumulate, and horror at the extent of Trump’s crimes. There is no question that he was in charge of the conspiracy, and that his many underlings were obeying his orders, implicit or direct.  But the Georgia indictment is special: the trial will be televised (I believe March 2024 is the date Willis has given); there cannot be pardons, at least not for five years; and if guilty, there are mandatory minimum prison sentences (5 – 20 years, I believe). The fact that Trump’s lot accessed voting machines in Coffee County without approval, and that a false set of electors was drawn up before the 2020 presidential election, are terrifying new details that many of us did not know  before. This is serious stuff, and should be taken very seriously. Some have dismissed the New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s hush money case as no big deal; the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago case is to be heard by a Trump appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, and although this is an extremely serious matter, the judge has little experience, has erred before, and is suspected of being in Trump’s court, as they put it; then there’s the E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York (not one of the current four indictments), Letitia James’ investigation into Trump’s taxes, and Jack Smith’s indictment in Washington D.C. for Trump’s activities on January 6 2021  and his efforts to overturn the presidential election. All this is very serious stuff, but it’s rather “trumped” by Fani Willis’s Wide-ranging indictment of Trump’s activities in Georgia (and other states) to claim victory in this election by all kinds of nefarious means.  America only escaped by a very narrow thread, by a few republicans who were honest, and prepared to be honest, in thwarting Trump’s pressure and desires.  Retired Judge Michael Luttig is featuring on many podcasts, as his advice (by Twitter, as it was then) to Mike Pence’s lawyer was one of the handful of crucial pieces to Pence’s refusal to conduct dishonestly his task on January 6^th, to certify the presidential election. Oh, and Dan Quayle, of all people, told him he couldn’t do what Trump wanted, either. Who would have thought that a guy who couldn’t spell tomato had these legal smarts?

As JD noted, Trump, Putin and Xi, two dictators and one would-be dictator all continue to dominate the airwaves and the news. There is plenty of other stuff happening, of course; it’s good to listen to The Rest is Politics podcast where Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell continue to provide a wider spectrum of events and elections in Europe and Africa, as well as the UK and the US. But what is happening in the Middle East, or Asia, including India, or South America?  Thankfully JD reads the British Economist, so he at least tries to keep up with the news. And Ukraine, anyone? The brutal war continues. The climate crisis continues to ravage disparate parts of our globe, and yet some deny it.

It’s very upsetting to see so much retrograde activity, with so many right-wing movements gaining strength; I thought the issue of women’s rights to be considered the equal of men, of gay rights to be accepted, of kindness to everyone, including immigrants and those of other faiths or skin-colour, of non-violence, kindness to children, and so on, were achieved and accepted. After all, what right do governments have to regulate such personal activities?  One doesn’t have to take part in any activity if you don’t want to.

The US Republican Party calls for little government, and talks about defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice, and yet they would be extremely intrusive about examining women’s and gay people’s medical and travel records. As the climate crisis makes more areas unliveable, because there is far too much rain water, or none at all, and there are catastrophic events of nature such as fires and typhoons, as well as unstable or oppressive governments, there will be more migration, and yet many countries are making it more and more difficult to move to their country, whatever the circumstances of the migrants. 

I should end now.  I’m not saying things were better in the “old days”, whenever they were!  They were different, though. Some things are better now, some worse.  Pornography and abuse of any kind is rightly scorned, and yet there is a glorification of “maleness” and degradation of women in many societies and queer people which doesn’t do anyone any good.

Enough said. Slava Ukraini!  Ngā mihi nui.

The wonder of Vermeer

Today is Sunday August 6th, 2023. Kia ora!

This morning it’s still very cold. I go to church, which is being held in the Hall, where it is supposedly warmer.  I tried to get there early, seeing that I was to do the gospel reading.  But there were already lots of people there.  It’s different from the church, where there is a lectern and a microphone; in the hall, there is a lectern, but nowhere to sit, and you have to hold the microphone. I asked my co-reader to hold the microphone for me.  Then there were beanbags put out for Tamariki Time, so one had to negotiate them too!

I am always nervous before doing a reading, and I had agonised over just how much to add to my reading of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, from Matthew 14: 13-21.  When I looked this text up, I realised that this incident came straight after King Herod’s birthday party, where the beheading of John the Baptist occurs.  The disciples take John’s body and bury it, and tell Jesus.  He goes away to a desert place, but crowds follow him, and then we have the miracle of the loaves and fishes, where a little food – perhaps enough for 10-12 people, is blessed and given by the disciples to over 5,000 men and women and children.  After this, we have another miracle, where Jesus walks on water and calms the wind and the waves.  So it’s a wonderful text, and this miracle is recounted in all four gospels.  After a tragic event (the death of John the Baptist), there is a miraculous meal, and then another miracle.  It’s understandably easy to be saddened and frustrated by tragic events, but Jesus’ power is even greater than this.

Afterwards two of the people who spoke to me had not realised that the killing of John the Baptist came immediately before the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, so I was glad that I had mentioned it.  There used to be a (fairly basic) café called Loaves and Fishes next to St Paul’s Cathedral in Molesworth Street in Thorndon.

There is so much one could say about this text, which most of us are familiar with from Sunday School; it’s a really well-known miracle, but a rather wonderful one. I was taught that feeding the crowds really meant feeding them spiritually, as well as literally.  It’s notable too that the disciples were asked to distribute the food, and that twelve handbaskets of leftovers were taken up afterwards.

We spent some time lamenting the state of the world – the ongoing war in Ukraine, violence in many places, and sickness and famine and homelessness, yet in spite of such horrors, I guess the Gospel reading tells us that God’s power and love is greater than that of King Herod, who was quite the consummate politician, it seems, rescuing his state of Judaea, and making an uneasy peace with the Roman Emperor Augustus.

It’s now Monday August 7^th.

This morning we had a heat pump installed.  We also had the builders here, and one of our sons was going to do another tip run with a trailer.  I was expecting a friend to come, but I had put her off – thankfully, because it was busy and noisy and chaotic here, and there were lots of cars and vans, one parked across the top of the driveway.

I had become used to the builders being very well behaved, and not really bothering me at all, but the heat pump guy was a different story! Actually the result is quite wonderful, but it was a bit trying getting there. 

In between all this, I walked up to the store, to get some more magnesium tablets and go to the supermarket.  I wanted to get croissants for lunch, but although they had croissants on special, all the packages were dated 5 August, or earlier; it’s the 7^th today, so I ended up buying two loose croissants. While I was there, I ran into two old friends. It seemed quiet mild when I walked up there.

In the afternoon it seemed to get much cooler, so we were really pleased to have more heating, although to be honest I would have no idea what the temperature is outside.

The weekly Covid 19 report came out today, as expected. It reads as follows: there have been 4,645 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 10 further deaths. Of the new cases, 2304 were reinfections.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3229.

As of midnight on Sunday, there were 160 cases in hospital, with five people in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of new cases was 659.

Last week, the Ministry of Health reported 3615 new cases over the previous week and 22 further deaths. So frustratingly the numbers are still holding steady.

It’s now Tuesday August 8^th.

Last night we watched the latest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries on TVNZ+.  It was a very Kiwi episode featuring a would-be community of nuns that wasn’t actually affiliated to the Catholic Church. Fern Sutherland i.e. Kristin Sims recalled several years of education at the hands of nuns, and rather took delight in shocking them. The detective in charge took delight in getting nuns who had supposedly taken a vow of silence to actually speak.  There were lots of puns on the word nun, and a deal of irreverence, that was not entirely inappropriate given that this wasn’t actually a community of nuns who had been ordained or had taken their vows. Their habits (old-fashionedly conventional) covered up tattoos and trousers.  There was a nun who gamed on her mobile phone, so a lot of deception going on.  It shocked me that the nuns had no personal possessions,  but then of course they did not. That’s one of the points of renouncing things.

Last night it was very cold, according to the forecast, but amazingly it’s mot that cold inside. I went to Bible Study this morning; it was really cold and wet, but afterwards it stopped raining and was briefly sunny. I got home using public transport.  The Bible Study was following on from my reading of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, in Matthew 14, where Jesus walks on water to his disciples, who, yet again, doubt that he is really Jesus;  Peter walks on water to meet Jesus, but then becomes afraid when he looks at the wind.  Jesus reaches out and saves him, and then the stormy weather dies down.  So after the beheading of John and Baptist, there are not one, but two miracles – or three if you count Peter’s walking on water before he got scared.

After I got home we went up to the local café for lunch, where we shared one of their delicious pizzas, and enjoyed oat lattés again.

It’s now Wednesday August 8^th.

This morning I got up early to go to hymn singing, while watching my phone to see if it had been cancelled. It was very cold – frosty, too, and my phone told me it was about 2°C outside. But I was toasty warm, thankfully, so I didn’t have trouble getting up. It was lovely, of course.  There is one more session before our organist is scheduled to have his surgery, and we discussed options of keeping in touch with his progress.

Afterwards I came home using public transport. Although it was so cold to start with, after singing it was fine and sunny, of not still pretty cold. But it was fine to sit in a bus shelter, since it wasn’t windy or raining.  There was disruption to the trains this morning, on account of ice on the overhead wires. But the buses were working fine, although I was caught out by Metlink’s online tracking facility, when the #24 bus turned up on time!

I spent the rest of the day quietly at home, since tomorrow is likely to be a busy day.

It’s now Thursday August 10^th.

Last night it was very cold, and this morning too, and it’s not fine, it’s wet and windy too. But thanks to the new heat pump, it was actually warmer in the master bedroom and the hallway outside than in the main living room. Usually it’s the other way round.

Today I had a specialist appointment at Wellington Hospital, but I had planned to go to an EOS (Exhibition on Screen) movie about the Dutch painter Vermeer at the Penthouse Cinema at 11 am. It’s on this Thursday morning and next Thursday morning and one evening, so there aren’t many viewing times. I’d excused myself from other activities, and to tell the truth, I’m fighting off some cold symptoms, but I tested negative for Covid 19, and I’m not coughing and sneezing lots, so although I didn’t feel great, I went to the movie. JD chose not to come, but he dropped me off, thankfully. The film was 90 minutes long, and I’m so pleased that I saw it, although it was pretty cold in the theatre.

Some of the EOS films have lots of annoying dialogue; this did not, although it focused on a recent Rijksmuseum exhibition of Vermeer’s work. I didn’t agree with all their interpretations, and the gallery seemed very dark: I have to agree with JD that some coloured backgrounds (for example, dark brown!) don’t work for me and don’t enhance the paintings, in my view.

Vermeer, a 17th century painter, lived in Delft, a small but beautiful city, and died young, at 43. Little is know about him, but there was a drawing school near where he lived, and he has a small oeuvre – 38 or 45 paintings, depending on whom you listen to. He was brought up Protestant, but his wife was a catholic, and they had 11 children, 8 daughters and 3 sons. 

I had seen an exhibition of Vermeer’s work at the Washington National Gallery in 2006, but it did not include all these works, especially not his early works. They’re all wonderful, of course.  He was influenced by Caravaggio and other Italian painters.  There was an early painting of Christ with Martha and her sister Mary; also a painting of Diana with her nymphs, but no portraits, self-portraits or otherwise, and few groups – the only one we saw, The Procurer, features four people, one of whom may be Vermeer.  There is a splendid oriental rug in the background. Vermeer did wonderful things with light and colour – the Master of Light, he’s called. An authority commented that he wasn’t concerned with perspective, but his keen use of perspective was one of the first things that I noticed in is paintings, remembering my perspective lessons. 

But what wonderful paintings! It seems there are two main subjects, but none of his women (or girls, some look very young) look oppressed or unhappy.  The setting is usually similar – a somewhat plain corner of a room, with black and white tiles on the floor, a simple desk, or keyboard, and, most importantly, an opened window, through which light comes. Letters often feature – being read, or written, so his heroines must have been literate, and one remembers how important letters were as a means of communication, in these days well before mobile phones, email and other forms of direct messaging anywhere at any time.

Within this simple setting there are interesting backgrounds, mostly of maps, but sometimes of scenes from myth, such as a naked cherub!

And he really likes pearls: often the heroine is wearing a string of pearls around her neck, and a pearl earring; there are jewellery boxes with pearls; and in the later paintings the lady wears a dress trimmed with ermine fur. In one painting the lady seems to have papers in her hair to produce ringlets! I remember my mother trying to produce Saturday night ringlets in my (and my sisters’) straight hair. In one painting the lady looks at the artist, with a light smile on her face, and through the window, each time, Vermeer does wonderful things with the light, shining perhaps on the earring; the dots of light in his early paintings become more sophisticated blobs of white. But there are no brush strokes.

Afterwards, JD said he was on his way, so I had an oat milk latté while I waited. The café was extremely busy; when JD arrived, we had something to eat, and discussed Vermeer’s work.  Then JD drove me to Wellington Hospital, to the Grace Neill Block, where I’d had four of my babies. But this was an emergency exit, and we had to find another entrance.  I was early, and so had to wait for a bit. There was no one else in the waiting room, which I found a little odd. Thankfully no one quizzed me about my cold symptoms. Actually I wasn’t coldie while I was there.

The upshot of the appointment is that I should have another blood test and a scan.

Afterwards, I found my way to the Wishbone coffee bar, not a great place. I ordered a coconut latté – which I couldn’t drink, it’s not nearly as nice as an oat milk latté.  Then JD picked me up, and thankfully there’s a pick up area at the main entrance, with plenty of places to sit down.

In the US, Trump continues to threaten the people who would hold him accountable, such as Jack Smith, Fani Willis, and Alvin Bragg. Meanwhile he continues to rise in the polls.

I’d better stop now. In Ukraine, brutality continues, and it remains difficult to know what is happening.  Slava Ukraini!  Ngā mihi nui.

An artist’s depiction of Trump in court in Washington D.C.

It’s Monday July 31^st, 2023. Kia ora!

There have been 3615 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 22 further deaths. Of the new cases, 1781 were reinfections. In addition, 116 people were in hospital as at midnight Sunday, and five in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 514.

Last week saw 3764 new cases reported and 24 further deaths. The numbers are coming down, at last, although people are still getting Covid 19, many having avoided it up till now.

A friend of ours came for lunch.  We had a lovely chat, and I think the food worked out all right!  I don’t usually invite people for lunch!  For the record, I made rare roast beef sandwiches with mustard, horseradish sauce, mayonnaise and mesclun leaves; Havarti cheese with crackers and quince paste; and a rather nice slice with coconut, sultanas and chocolate pieces, and plenty of tea and coffee, of course. I would have liked to buy some fruit, but at New World in Khandallah most things I wanted were either missing or really expensive.

It’s now Thursday August 3^rd.

What a lot’s been happening!  Yesterday Trump was indicted on charges relating to the January 6 2021 insurrection, not of inspiring his followers to be violent, but for his actions consequent on refusing to accept that Joe Biden had won the November 2020 presidential election and conspiring to stay in power.  Many lies were told, not only by Trump himself, but by others who lied for him. Well, it’s been some time coming, but I felt yesterday morning, and still today, that it’s an important moment, and one to savour. As Susan Glasser said in this norming’s Bulwark podcast, justice is being delivered, even if politically Trump is stronger than ever, according to a recent poll.  This poll had De Santis’ support declining further, and none of Trump’s other Republican contenders made over 2% in this particular poll.

Of course there were several emergency broadcasts and podcasts yesterday, providing a feast of listening, if one is so inclined. For the many Americans who’ve been on Indictment Watch, this has finally happened, and as it’s an ongoing case, there may be further indictments; of course, there’s still the Georgia case to drop, by brave Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  And there’s another case to be held where E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defaming her again (n CNN!), and Alvin Bragg’s case about hush money payments to porn stars before the 2016 election. This is regarded as small beer by many, but not by all, however. Whatever the outcomes, it all adds up to a lot of time in court, and a lot of legal fees.

On Tuesday I met two old friends from Tai Chi for lunch in Johnsonville.  How I miss Tai Chi!  It was lovely to see them again. They’re both tutors, but they’re a bit short of other tutors for their weekly classes (now Thursdays only: I used to go on a Tuesday but they no longer hold classes on a Tuesday).

Afterwards JD and I went to Porirua where we bought cupboard handles and drawer handles. But sadly, no new curtains: Mitre 10 Mega doesn’t sell curtains. We had afternoon tea at the lovely Columbus Café there, sharing a cheese scone (still delicious) and an apple and berry shortcake with our oat milk lattés. 

On Wednesday morning I got up early to go to hymn singing. During Tuesday night it was quite warm – I was too hot, although it was forecast to be much cooler. It was quite mild in the morning, too, although it rained off and on. However I went to a Te Reo Māori class afterwards, and when I came out it was freezing cold, with a very cold wind. JD wasn’t answering his phone; I had expected to stay later for an exercise class and go shopping, but it was too cold and I was too tired to stay. I caught a bus to Johnsonville, after waiting a few minutes in the cold bus “shelter”, and then another bus to Churton Park.  Later that afternoon JD and I went to New World in Thorndon, where we bought rhubarb, raspberries and coffee beans, but sadly there were no potato-topped pies. It felt too cold for salads.

Last night it was very cold indeed. We are currently watching the latest series of “The Bay” on TVNZ+, since our viewing options are very limited now.   I went to bed quite early, thinking I’d be warmer in bed. I’ve finished reading Ruth Reichl’s memoir, Tender at the Bone, and have that typical sense of dislocation on finishing a book which I’ve really enjoyed, and being reluctant to start another one.

This morning I went to my Thursday morning singing. Despite the freezing cold, there was a good turnout there. JD had dropped me off early, so I was able to have an oat milk latté and a cheese scone beforehand.  The irony of avoiding dairy milk in my coffee, but presumably having it in my scone, does not escape me. However I enjoy them both. Afterwards a friend brought me home, and then JD brought some things home for lunch.  Now I’m comfortable and nearly warm enough as I listen to more indictment stuff.

It’s now Friday August 4^th.

Today (actually yesterday in the US) Trump was arraigned in a Washington court.  MSNBC and TYT have reported on this. Also the BBC.  The reporter bravely asked a Trump spokesman some questions. It was difficult to watch!  Even the BBC aren’t used to this kind of stonewalling. She denied that Trump had committed crimes!  And of course we had what-about-ism with how dreadful the Democrats are. Well, whatever your thoughts about the 2020 US presidential election, it’s hard to deny that Trump committed crimes, along with many who went along with his lies. Mehdi Hasan just did a show demonstrating police violence using tear gas and bomber planes towards Black Lives Matter peaceful protests in Washington after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.  Mehdi showed again the huge double standard where republicans are prepared to come down hard on BLM marchers, but give any of their own cronies a wide berth in overlooking their violent and disgusting behaviour.

Lawfare have also made another emergency recording about the Trump arraignment.  Only the American media can make so much out of a seemingly smallish event, on every channel, but then this is a really big moment – for the world. The Lawfare broadcast gives lots of information, like the fact that Evan Corcoran is there, seemingly for Trump’s defence, although he is a likely prosecution witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. That is strange, although perhaps Trump is really short of lawyers. Apparently Jack Smith was there, looking relaxed and even smiling; he and Trump made eye contact. Unusually, several judges were there, including Amy Berman Jackson, who judged a number of the Mueller cases.  Apparently Trump pled Not Guilty to the four charges (I heard there are 78 felony counts in all? That can’t be right, surely? (It was repeated by Chris Hayes on his All In program). He’s claimed that his arraignment is a sad day for America. Indeed, it is. Most presidents don’t do crimes: keeping and showing and lying about classified documents, raping someone, concealing hush money payments, and not only inspiring an insurrection, but failing to close it down, despite people being hurt and killed. Oh yes, he called on his supporters to hang his vice-president. Most people don’t do those kinds of things. But yes, on this occasion I agree with Trump. He was accompanied by Nauta, his body guard, also indicted, in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.  None of his family turned up.  There didn’t seem to be many fans outside, either. The biggest crowd was the press, and plenty of people who were there to celebrate this moment. The arraignment took place very near the scene of the crime – the January 6 crime.

Actually it’s really interesting listening to different reactions and descriptions. Apparently Trump had to wait quite a while (15 minutes) in court.  That’s interesting; I doubt if he’s kept waiting very often. He was also addressed as Mr Trump in the court. He cut a rather sadly different figure, fidgeting while waiting for the judge to arrive; He was finger-printed!   Some humiliation there then.

Back here, in Auckland, there’s been another shooting, leaving two people injured. The gunman got away on a Lime scooter. One of the men shot later died.

Today it’s not so cold, and it’s kind of fine and sunny.  Still, we won’t get carried away just yet about the cold spell being over.

In the afternoon we went into town so that JD could get a blood test.  We found a carpark, and he showed other people the routine – that you take a number, and scan it, and wait for your number to be called, but sadly the blood test request was out of date!  We had put off going earlier because SCL staff were on strike! I went to the Mojo Café across the road, but sadly the kitchen was closed, it was very expensive, and not very good.

Afterwards we went out to North City at Porirua, where I moseyed around the shops. I do find the odours in the Food Court quite upsetting! It was nice to go but I didn’t see anything much to buy there.

It’s now Saturday August 5^th.

It’s kind of fine, and quite cold here again; JD wants to see Barbie (the movie); he figures that since it was made by Disney, it won’t come on Neon or Netflix.  But bookings for both Barbie and Oppenheimer are very full, if not fully booked, so I don’t think we’ll be going today.

I’ve watched and listened to yet more podcasts about the third Trump indictment. There are some great takeaways: Mike Pence selling merchandise with T shorts featuring “Too Honest” (Trump reportedly told him he was too honest to steal the election). Another one is from Jason Miller, still a Trump supporter, who talked about “Conspiracy S*** sent down from the mother ship”. Really, a line for the ages. And one of Trump’s lawyers, John Lauro, admitted in an interview to some of Trump’s wrongdoing.  That too has been picked up by several commentators.

Meanwhile, local politics is annoying. The media seem to really want a National Party coalition to win.  Act has ruled out working with Winston Peters’ NZ First; Christopher Luxon is not so sure. Peter Dunne (who once belonged to Labour) now decries them.  Do people really want Luxon as Prime Minister? Hipkins is doing quite well as preferred Prime Minister, but some of his party are letting him down.  Still, as I said to a friend recently, my biggest hope is that Biden wins the next US Presidential election. As long as that happens, I think I’d be prepared to put up with a National led government.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini!  Ngā mihi nui.

An old, comfortable if shabby couch – free to a kind home

It’s now Monday July 24, 2023. Kia ora!

Well, it’s carpet laying day today, and the carpet layers turned up promptly at 8 am.  I got up well before 7 am and was duly breakfasted and showered before they came. The builders came a little later, and continued their work of pulling up the existing carpet and nailing down floorboards.  I moved more things from the master bedroom into the ensuite bathroom, and moved essential stuff downstairs, such as meds, toothbrush, newspaper, mobile phone and charger, computer and other essentials.

JD and I went up to Simmer Café for morning tea again.  It’s very cold this morning, and raining off and on, so we drove up rather than walking. I remarked that there weren’t many people there, but JD reminded me that it was only 9 am!  We had our usual oat milk lattés, and I had a cinnamon pinwheel (freshly baked), while JD had his usual – a blueberry muffin. Delicious. When we returned home, we went downstairs to come into the house. I am quite comfortable in one of the downstairs bedrooms, with the heater on, of course.

Yesterday afternoon JD made a superhuman effort to clear the dining room table, and other papers that he’d managed to hang onto. I say superhuman, but he’d left it to the last minute, and I was very cross with him.  We photographed and packed up the large jigsaw puzzle that was on top of the table.  I proceeded to establish that we can take the extension out of the table. What a lovely dining table it is. It’s quite wide, so you can have it as a table for four; you can put up the folding extensions at either end and have a table for six, or you can put the extension in the middle and have lots of people sitting there, providing you can find enough chairs that are safe to sit on!

I hope that JD can be tidier after this. 

Last night we watched the first episode of the new series of Brokenwood Mysteries; I managed to stay awake for the whole episode, and I also picked the guilty party.  Fern Sutherland has changed her hair – or is she wearing a wig? The detective now sports some grey hair, has gained more weight, and has rather ugly reading glasses. Having said that, I thought it was quite a good episode, with lots of Shakespeare!

Today the weekly Covid 19 report is published. It is as follows: there have been 3764 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the past week and 24 further deaths.

Of the new cases, 1844 were reinfections – close to half. One-hundred-and-nineteen people are in hospital, and three in intensive care. The seven-day rolling average of cases has dropped to 535.

Five deaths were reported in Auckland, six from Waikato, one from Bay of Plenty, one from Hawke’s Bay, one from the Wellington region, three from Nelson-Marlborough, three from Canterbury, one from West Coast and three from Southern.

Last week saw 4332 new cases reported and 13 further deaths.

It’s now Tuesday July 25^th.

Last night we were back to some kind of normality, in the main living room, anyway. I was going to put china back in one china cabinet, but it’s hard to get to this china!  We discovered that although the Sky cable has been cut (by mistake), we could log into TVNZ+ On Demand using my login, so although it wasn’t very consistent, we were able to watch Nicola Walker in Unforgotten (Series 4).  I think I have seen it before, but no matter, it’s good to see it again. JD thinks we don’t need the Sky cable; I still like to watch some things on Eden, or Prime, or Bravo;  it seems we can get Te Whakaata Māori on screen and select something to view.  It would be nice to not need the Sky cable any more.

This morning the carpet layers were due to come at 8:30 am. Accordingly I set my alarm to 7 am. It was still dark, but I got the newspaper in, started the dishwasher, and made some breakfast. I duly showered and washed my hair and got out of the master bedroom by 8 am, so there would be free access for the builders to move remaining furniture, and the carpet layers to finish their work.

JD and I went up to Simmer Café for morning tea again (to get away from the noise!) Actually I will miss this, in a way. We enjoyed café lattés again, and I had a cheese scone while JD stuck to his favourite – a blueberry muffin.  I must admit, they do them rather well.

Now I’m warm and comfortable in one of the downstairs bedrooms, before the big task of putting things together again.  Over morning tea we discussed where to put the lovely rugs, mostly given to us by a cousin of JD’s (now deceased). For years we had placed them to hide wear and blemishes in the old carpet; now we have different choices, and what a joy it is to have them. Perhaps I can feel a little proud of our house again, and remind myself that I also own it.

It’s now Wednesday July 26^th.

Last night it was supposed to be very cold (very cold in my book is below 10°C), but I wore fleece pyjamas and was rather too warm in the night. What a strange problem to have.  I got up early to go to hymn singing (which is really a bit of a lie-in compared to the last two days; I try to get away by 8:55 am), but as I was eating a quick slice of toast for breakfast I  read an email to say it had been cancelled, so I needn’t have hurried after all.  It’s pretty toasty in the master bedroom, although I believe it’s very cold outside. It’s raining heavily off and on, but now this afternoon it’s sunny and a little warmer.  After hymn singing I was debating whether to go to an exercise class at 12 noon (there’s a bit of a gap between that and hymn singing), but I think I won’t be going anywhere today.  I am really tired today, but I have done a bit more unpacking: I’ve moved remaining things out of the ensuite bathroom; and I’ve unpacked and restored precious things in one of the china cabinets. That feels like quite an achievement.  I’ve also put some things in there that were formerly in the other cabinet, and so there’s more room on the kitchen table.

I should put back things that were on top of this cabinet, but I should really clean the silver before I do so.

I am getting a better picture of where things are.  Again, I am wondering whether to throw away things of JD’s that I don’t know what they are or what they’re for.  I asked him for my suitcase that I took to Australia in January and to Taiwan in May; he took this without asking, and now it contains papers, I’m told. What happens next time I want to go away?

We also got more Persian rugs in from the garage, and have placed them in different spots, since they’re no longer needed to hide stains or specially worn passages of the old carpet.

I have also cleaned the downstairs shower now that it has a new fan, and got rid of some cobwebs.

Yet again, the weather’s not too wild here, but it’s snowing in places in the South Island and in Auckland the Harbour Bridge is closed because of wind – again! Before the last year or two I don’t remember the Auckland Harbour Bridger ever being closed because of wind.

It’s now Thursday July 27^th.

This morning I went to my Thursday morning singing, which was lovely, of course, although I had a really croaky voice to start with. Thankfully this cleared up.

Afterwards JD and I shared a pizza for lunch. Then we went out to Kenepuru to return the carpet sample we still had, and bought some new curtains for the mezzanine area.  We also swapped the part JD had bought to fix the lamp I’ve been trying to get repaired. We bought some tape to hold rugs down, since one of our rugs has a tendency to turn up, providing a tripping hazard.

Overseas, some strange things are happening. In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu is persisting with a judicial overhaul that would further limit powers of the Israeli Supreme Court to deal with his corruption, despite significant ongoing protests, which are now being met with tear gas. In Ukraine, fighting persists, although Putin has raised the military recruitment age to 30. In Greece and other parts of Europe very high temperatures and forest fires persist, forcing evacuations. Sinead O’Connor has died, and Kevin Spacey has been cleared of sexual assault. Mitch McConnell froze for several seconds (it seemed like a long time) during a press conference he was holding. Actually that’s what happened to me when I first became ill – I couldn’t speak. Just saying.

In the US everyone is on Trump indictment watch, but it hasn’t happened yet. Lawfare really got into the weeds with a podcast about the practicalities of perhaps running four trials of Donald Trump, and the risk of Republicans politicising the effort to hold him accountable. He’s “running” i.e. standing for president, after all.  Actually he’s standing for the Republican nomination as their candidate for President. He’s polling far ahead of any other Republican candidate, so far, although Asa Hutchison, a candidate for President, believes Trump won’t be the Republican candidate. That may be wishful thinking, although there are differing views of Trump’s electability vis á vis his electoral support.

In Nigeria, an army coup has overthrown the “democratically” elected leader. In Spain’s recent election, the far-right Vox party did not do as well as expected.

It’s now Friday July 28^th.

This morning the builders fixed a number of things around the house, the main one being adjusting doors as necessary for the new carpet and underlay.  Consequently I breakfasted in the kitchen, rather than in bed as I usually do. They also installed brackets to secure a bookcase and a china cabinet against their walls. I unpacked more china and put it in the china cabinet. They’ve also put a new hinge on the letter-box opener, and installed a new toilet-roll holder in the guest bathroom. Now JD will have no excuse for not changing the toilet toll!  JD has put up the new curtains we bought yesterday; they’re “ivory”, not white, but they’re a bit lighter than the previous curtains, and not as wide.  Perhaps we’ll change them – they weren’t expensive, and we have to go to Bunnings again.  The pantry door in the kitchen has been fixed, and the front door too – it used to stick, sometimes.  The doors to the ensuite bathroom, and between the kitchen and living room, have been adjusted so they shouldn’t rattle any more. 

This morning I went to a NZ Film Festival movie on behalf of a friend, Saint Omer. It was a French movie, with subtitles, where I chose to read the subtitle instead of trying to understand the French. The dialogue was very important, and I didn’t want to miss any of it.  The movie centred around a court case of a young woman from Senegal who had killed (and admitted killing) her baby daughter.  This case was watched by another young woman, also from Senegal, who was pregnant with her first child. It was a complex story, with several interweaving strands, resulting in almost a desire to see it again and understand it better. The material, however, was disturbing.  It’s very disturbing when a mother kills her child/ren; the film had shots from a film of Medea, too. I had studied Euripides’ play Medea when I was at university. It certainly raised disturbing issues. While it’s very upsetting when an angry boyfriend kills a child, it’s even more disturbing when a mother kills her child. Alongside this we have daily evidence from the Lauren Dickason trial, where she is on trial for killing her three daughters.  I am very upset indeed by the idea of children not being safe and protected at all times: there’s a new podcast series entitled “I love my children, but…”. I now feel strangely normal.  I loved (and still love) my children enormously: they didn’t ask to be born, I used to keep reminding myself. Children now seem very vulnerable again.

Afterwards I had lunch with my friend and her sister and her husband, and we talked about the film, and what it meant.

It’s now Saturday July 29^th.

Today, thankfully, we don’t have to do anything.

Last night we had Egg Foo Young for tea – delicious. The place where JD buys it provides some rice as well, and furthermore, there’s enough for two nights.  Last night we watched another episode of the latest series of Unforgotten. The lovely Nicola Walker’s character has died, and she’s been replaced with a difficult woman who has issues of her own (her husband told her he’d been unfaithful; she’s devastated, she’d had the “perfect marriage” until now. Ha!) the lovely Sunny Khan doesn’t like the new “gov” (not “ma’am”), and she has made no effort to get to know the staff or get along with them. So although in this series we miss the lovely shots of Cambridge, which are replaced by ugly wind machines, it’s still well worth watching.  Of the odd things worth watching on TVNZ on demand, this is one of them.

In other news, the very troubled Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has died, aged 56. We presume she took her own life, as did her 17 year old son Shane recently.  While this must have been devastating, she still has three living children, who now have to deal with the deaths of two people close to them.

A Russian right=wing blogger has been arrested; the foreign minister in China has disappeared; in Nigeria, an army coup has taken power and deposed the democratically elected president; and so on and so on.

Yesterday there was more shocking news about Donald Trump, with serious charges added to the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents indictment. There are now 41 charged (or perhaps 42?) in this case alone, and another person has been indicted, a Carlos de Oliveira, a maintenance manager at Mar-a-Lago. It seems that Trump wanted security footage, as held by a server, destroyed. He’s accused of impairing justice by destroying footage of handling of classified documents.  This is serious stuff, whatever his supporters may think.

Oh, and Mitch McConnell just froze for several seconds during a press conference. I like to joke that he choked on the word ”bipartisan”, but he was unable to speak for several seconds and was escorted away, although he returned soon afterwards, saying he was fine.  There is concern about him, however.

In Ukraine, it seems the counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces is ramping up; Putin has cancelled the grain deal, whereby he allowed Ukrainian grain to be shipped out from Crimea to African and other nations. As if the world didn’t already have huge problems.

Today we went to Peppermill Café for lunch and had yummy Belgian waffles with our oat milk lattés.  But we couldn’t get a new fastener for a kitchen cupboard, because neither of us had photographed or measured the existing one, so that’s a shame. Back in Johnsonville, JD decided he needed to get petrol, and we ran into a traffic jam.  It has been a fine, sunny day, after a very cold start, and now it is getting cold again. One could get quite used to this climate! We can cope with very cold evenings and mornings if it’s fine and sunny in between, with little wind and no rain.

That’s it for now, Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.